


I Never Knew A Part Of You, You Didn't Set In Ink

by QueerCrusader



Series: Sifki Week 2018 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Female Loki (Marvel), Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-06-14 16:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueerCrusader/pseuds/QueerCrusader
Summary: Sif is a no-nonsense police officer from Oslo, Norway. She doesn't believe in fairy tales, wishing on stars or fate. And she definitely doesn't believe in soulmates.Until one day, her mark appears.Technically part of Sifki Week, even if I'm a bit late ^^'Day 4 & 5 - AU, Soulmates.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is a work in progress, it will be updated as I go along, so updates may not be regular. Please be gentle and bear with me. Tags may be altered and characters may be added. If any warnings change, I will give a heads up in the notes!

Sif had always believed soulmates to be a thing of myth and legend. People who were prone to have one were apparently rare, and it was even rarer to actually _find_ your intended soulmate, so why should she bother with believing?

The story went that, if you had a soulmate out there, your skin would tell you. Images would blossom on your body, growing and shrinking and ever-shifting. No-one was born with them. Instead, as people grew and changed, so would their corresponding tattoos on another person’s body morph in size and sometimes even imagery. Sometimes a person changed too drastically, and two people would no longer be compatible. Sometimes the person died. Both were viable reasons for tattoos to come and go.

There were religions – or cults, as Sif liked to call them – built around the interpretation of tattoos. Many independent artists made some extra money on the side working for these groups, taking down the images to capture them on paper. There were rumours of people getting someone to trace their image with tattooing equipment, meaning that when the soulmate mark shifted, a print would remain on their skin of where and how it had been before. People fell in love with their tattoos without ever meeting their soulmate. Oracles and mystics and interpreters teamed up with private investigators to hunt down people and play matchmaker.

It was all a scam to Sif. A way of the government to get more private information from idiots who willingly gave it. She had met someone once who had a supposed shifting tattoo, but even if that had been real, she just couldn’t fathom that it was some sort of sign of the universe that you were tethered to another human being, tied down by fate, by _love_. It was a Disney fairy tale; optimistic and insulting.

Naturally, the universe decided to have a right laugh and mess with Sif.

She was at the firing range when it happened. The feeling of something splashing across her leg caused her to nearly shoot out a lamp in the ceiling, to the dismay of several other officers around her.

Sif felt her heart hammering in her chest as though as if she’d run a marathon; frantically checking the floor for any puddles she could’ve stepped in or mice that could’ve rushed past, anything that could explain the foreign sensation. Upon finding nothing out of the ordinary, her mind started racing with all the possible diseases that listed sensory hallucinations as a symptom.

She quickly put down her weapon and earmuffs, rushing out to find a quiet space where she could investigate herself. Someone complained about regulations, telling her she needed to return equipment before leaving the room, but she brushed right past them and headed straight for the toilets. As soon as the stall door was locked she carefully lifted her right pant leg.

There, its colours still swirling as the ink hadn’t quite settled, was a tattoo, its colours bright against her skin.

_At least it didn’t feel like getting an actual tattoo_ , Sif thought numbly as she recalled the time when she got her Celtic knot on the back of her neck together with the rest of her team at the police precinct. It only hit her a second later that she had a damn _soulmate mark_.

“Oh no,” she muttered to herself. “Hell no. This is _not_ real. This isn’t…”

Uttering a sleuth of swearwords she emerged from the stall again, rushing to the taps to splash water on her face. She even tried to use some to wash the mark off her leg. She refused to study it in detail, refused to even see what the symbol was. She didn’t want to know anything about this.

As she walked out of the bathroom, she immediately found herself bumping into a solid mass that turned out to be Thor. His face lit up in a smile as he saw her, but as soon as he caught on to Sif’s mood it evaporated again. He placed his large hands on her shoulders.

“Sif, you look shaken,” he told her carefully. “What’s the matter?”

But she shook her head, attempting to smile back in an effort to hide her turbulent thoughts.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “It’s nothing.”

“Well,” Thor tried, “me and the boys were gonna go to the gym and then hit up the Brenneriet, if you’re still up for joining us?”

The Kaffebrenneriet was their favourite coffee shop, only a few minutes walking down the road from both the police district and the gym. It was set right next to an old fire station that had been turned into a museum, and the mixture of reddish-brown brick and red-painted window and door frames gave it a bright look, and even when coupled with the more industrial interior design it felt warm and homey. It was hipster paradise, but the boys at the precinct found themselves equally at home, especially now that Brunhilde had picked up a job there as well in an attempt to put herself back in society.

Brunhilde used to be on the force too, but she retired early after a raid gone wrong had left her as the only one alive in her team, giving her crippling PTSD. She was slowly but surely getting better however, and each day Sif or her team dropped by, she was happy to serve them and chat over the counter, to numerous complaints of her boss.

Sif sighed. “I’m gonna skip the gym today if that’s alright with you guys,” she told Thor. “But I’ll come join you later for coffee.”

“Alright,” Thor nodded. “But you’re sure that you’re alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sif waved him away. “It’s fine.” She sighed again. “I’ll tell you at some point, alright?”

Thor smiled before pressing a kiss against her forehead. “There’s no rush,” he told her. “You know where to find me if you need me.”

Sif smiled back and nodded. Thor was one of her very closest friends and had been for a long time. They’d met at the academy, where Sif had been rather outnumbered as a woman. Where plenty of men had mocked her for her wish to become a policewoman, Thor, along with Fandrall, Volstag and Hogunn, had stood by her side. They all worked at different precincts across Oslo now, but did their best to see each other at least once a week.

As Thor disappeared around a corner, Sif swore again. Unsure of what to do with herself she looked around, feeling almost as if she were looking for an escape route. A hysterical little laugh escaped her.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “I’m way too affected by it.” Trying to centre herself, she took a deep breath. “It’s just… a birthmark. Just a mole, or a freckle. A very elaborate freckle. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a binding contract, you’re not obligated to…”

Her heart stopped.

“Oh fuck.”

In her little moment of panic, Sif had forgotten she was in fact _dating_.

Richard was a sweet guy; a friend of Thor’s girlfriend, Jane. Funny, if a little timid. He’d been good for Sif, someone to take her edge off when she came home, sharp and hardened after a shift. But unless something drastically changed for him today, she doubted her fresh mark connected her to him.

Even if it did, she already knew she didn’t want to be tethered to him for life. Richard was a good guy, but if Sif tried to imagine herself five years down the line, it was without him by her side. She’d be what she was now; a cop that drank a little excessively with her buddies, one who partied as hard as she worked. A strong woman with a sharp smile who took no shit, not from anybody. And most definitely unmarried.

Just to make sure, she quickly sent Richard a text, asking him how his day was going. Within a minute she received an answer consisting of a thumbs-up emoji and a couple of smileys. Sif rolled her eyes, but the little message still managed to make her smile a little. Richard was working, which meant he either answered in emojis or with a quick “talk later” to the bigger questions. The simple familiarity, the _normality_ of it, helped Sif calm down a little.

But as her thoughts settled, curiosity managed to raise its ugly little head. What was it really that was on her leg?

With a quick scope of the hallway to establish that she was indeed alone, Sif carefully reached down to lift the pant leg again.

On her leg was a golden spear, flames billowing outward from the shaft. It looked both menacing and destructive.

“Well, that’s ominous,” Sif muttered. She was supposedly tied to some kind of psychopath? A pyromaniac, maybe? Or maybe they were just passionate.

…About spears.

Yeah. This looked kinda bad.

Sif let out a frustrated sigh. What the hell was she supposed to do with this? Ignore it until it went away? Honestly, it was a tempting thought, but the mark was already driving her mad, and it had only been there fifteen minutes. Something told her she wouldn’t last what might turn out to be years, or even the rest of her life of carrying the mark.

Letting her pant leg fall down again, she sank down against the corridor’s concrete wall. _Well_ , she thought, _not much for it but to accept I have one and get on with life._

But who the hell could possibly be tethered to her sorry ass? A battered, bruised, ‘knock me down and I get the fuck back up again’ little cop from Norway? Someone damaged, she’d guess from the mark.

She was willing to just bear it and get on with life. But what if the other person would try and find their soulmate? What then?

_Well_ , Sif thought grimly as she pushed herself off against the wall to get back up again, _I was trained to deal with dangerous people._

_Let them come._


	2. Chapter 2

After a bit more sulking and eventually returning her firearm and protective gear to the desk, Sif managed to still meet up with the boys in time. The Kaffebrenneriet was as welcoming as ever, the warmth of its little kitchen spilling into the seating area to keep the patrons comfortable in the brisk early Autumn weather. Sif was welcomed by a chorus of “Kriegsen!”s and “nice of you to join us, detective”, and she laughed as she pulled up a chair to plant herself next to Volstagg.

“Better watch that waistline,” she told him with a wink as he took a bite of his brownie. “That new desk job isn’t doing your weight any wonders.”

Volstagg let out a boisterous laugh at that, his whole body shaking with it.

“Dear Sif, I think my replacement to a desk job might be the best thing to have happened to me in a while,” he told her. “Yes, I enjoyed being out in the field, but not having to stay fit for duty? Enjoying the full extent of my wife’s cooking again? I haven’t felt this content in years.”

“Good to hear you aren’t as body-conscious as these fitness freaks,” Brunhilde told him as she walked over before planting both elbows on the table, right next to Sif. “So, what will it be for my favourite officer?” she smirked. “Cappuccino, Americano, peppermint tea?”

“Normally I’d tell you to piss off and get me a double espresso,” Sif pointed out, to which Brunhilde nodded, “but today I’m gonna be taking it easy on the caffeine. You think you can hit me up with some ginger tea?”

“No caffeine?” the barista gasped. She reached out to Sif’s forehead, feeling for any signs of a fever. Sif just raised an eyebrow in response. Brunhilde let her touch linger for a second longer before retreating again with a wink. “Hot as ever. A spicy drink for a spicy woman, coming up.”

“I don’t pay you to flirt,” a voice carried from the kitchen, but the ex-officer simply laughed and flipped off the general space behind her. Thor shook his head.

“Don’t let your manager see you do that,” he told her, trying to keep his voice strict, even though the mirth in his eyes was clear to everyone. “I’m pretty sure there’s only so much even you can get away with.”

But Brunhilde waved away his warnings, chuckling instead. “I love it when he tries to chastise me,” she told them, ignoring Fandral’s “kinky”. She winked as she continued to speak. “He hasn’t got a leg to stand on with me,” she told the group. “Whatever he says, all I have to do is pull the discrimination or homophobia card.”

“You are such a dick,” Hogun told her with a huff of laughter.

“I stand up for my rights,” Brunhilde pointed out. “Different thing entirely. Although, you’re probably right. I am indeed a dick.”

The group sat for a while longer, laughing, chatting and sipping their drinks as the coffee shop slowly emptied around them. Sif embraced the distraction, happily putting her worries to the back of her mind as the boys gossiped about their respective precincts. Volstagg and Hogun had both been stationed at a precinct across the city after graduating from the Academy, while Fandral, Sif and Thor worked at the nearest precinct where Brunhilde had worked alongside them for a few years before retiring early. Being able to all see each other like this only happened about once a month, even if two or three of them managed to meet up a few times every week.

It was at about five o’clock that Sif had to admit defeat.

“Richard’s making me dinner tonight, boys,” she told them apologetically. “I should head off.”

They all said their goodbyes, and with a heavy heart Sif finally headed home. She didn’t want to face Richard; she wasn’t sure yet what to say. Telling him about the mark had to be done, she’d decided earlier. She felt a moral obligation. And besides, he’d notice the next time they’d go to bed anyway. It wasn’t as if she could wear knee-high stockings under her pyjamas.

Dinner was easy, as were most things with Richard. When she felt tired or weighed down or just in a quiet mood in general, he’d fill the room with chatter, keeping her distracted. He’d make gentle jokes to get her to smile, give her a second helping before she even had to ask. It was nice. _He_ was nice.

“I got a mark today.”

Richard had been in the middle of washing up when she’d said it – the first moment in some time he’d been quiet. A mug slipped through his fingers, white shards flying across the tiled floor with an almost-deafening crash. Sif winced.

“You mean, like a ‘well done, A-plus’ from your captain mark?” Richard tried, but it was clear he already knew. Sif moved around him, carefully avoiding the mug shards, to grab a glass from the cabinet behind him. She then took the wine bottle off the counter and helped herself to what had to be an unhealthy amount even by her standards. With a sigh she took it over to the couch, where she sank down and took a big gulp.

“I mean a ‘tethered to some poor unsuspecting idiot possibly halfway across the world who I don’t even know’ mark,” she spoke, despair tinging her voice. “Except I’m the unsuspecting idiot.”

“Yeah, whoever’s tethered to you must be one lucky asshole,” Richard muttered half-jokingly. He looked down at the shards around his feet, sighed, then joined Sif on the couch, stealing a sip from her wine. “Come on then. Show me.”

Sif raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Richard replied. “Rip off the band-aid and all that. I’m a big boy, I can take it.”

Sif snorted at that, but didn’t reply. Instead she handed him the wine glass again and placed her foot on the couch, gingerly raising her pant leg.

The spear shone angrily at them, the light of the flames reflected along its golden shaft. Sif only now noticed that there were tiny markings carved into it as well – little runes that looked like they were oozing black smoke.

“Great,” she muttered. “Just great.”

“Yeah, superb,” Richard chimed in with that playfully sarcastic tone of his. “Horrible tattoo to have, really. No more shorts for you.”

Sif turned to him, surprise and incredulity radiating from her face. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “You know what this means, right?”

“Yeah,” Richard replied, “some poor unsuspecting idiot is meant to be with you, and it isn’t me. You’re welcome to search every inch of me for marks later –” Sif rolled her eyes at that – “but I’m pretty sure I’m clean.”

Sif let out a sigh. She wasn’t sure if she felt disappointed or happy – a mixture of both, perhaps.

“So you’re not upset?” she tried.

Richard’s next smile was a sad one, but a smile nevertheless.

“I’m pretty sure I knew,” he told her. “I mean, there weren’t any marks anyway to begin with, right?”

“Yeah, but some couples develop marks for each other as they stay with each other,” Sif pointed out. “It could’ve happened to us.”

Again, Richard smiled. He gently took her hand, pressing a kiss against it before holding it against his face. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, seeming to revel in the soothing familiarity of a gesture that was starting to mean something different as the night went on. Sif felt her heart ache.

“No,” he told her softly. “I don’t think it could’ve.”

Sif swallowed, trying to rid herself of the sudden lump in her throat and failing. “So what now?” she asked. Her voice was shaking. She hadn’t felt this vulnerable since her exams at the Academy. She’d been safe for the past five months, falling into a steady rhythm with Richard that was comfortable and soothing when the job – when life – became too stressful. She’d become more and more attached to him over time, and he was clearly fond of her too. They were skating on thin ice now, about to lose it all.

Richard seemed to understand. Setting away the wine glass, he proceeded to pull Sif into a tight hug. For a second she froze in his embrace, but then his familiar smell – a smell she was slowly starting to associate with home – hit her, and she broke apart in his arms.

They both cried for a good half hour before finally conceding and curling up on the couch with more wine and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.

“It’s not fair, you know,” Sif told Richard a few hours later. They were both drunk, but they’d at least managed to calm down a little. “I really like you.”

“I like you too, you know,” Richard told her. “You’re cool. And badass. I always tell Jane and Darcy, and Ian. I tell them, ‘Sif is so cool, she has a gun you know.’” He hiccupped. “They know.”

“Glad to hear,” Sif muttered. An idea came to her then.

“Do you think we can just… keep going?”

Richard lifted his head, looking at her with puzzlement. “Keep going?”

“Us,” Sif pointed out. “Our thing. Think we can keep going?”

Richard frowned at that, thinking long and hard.

“I wanna at least try,” he finally spoke. “Yeah. I mean, so what the universe thinks we’re not meant to be? I mean, it’s like the cancer gene.”

“Excuse me!?”

“No, I mean, you can have like a gene for a disease like cancer,” Richard tried. “But like, that doesn’t mean you’re doomed and should start smoking and stuff. Just because the universe decided you can have this thing doesn’t mean you have to give in to it. Living healthy can prevent you from ever having cancer, even if you have the gene.”

“…So how is this related to us?” Sif pushed, still feeling like she was being compared to a deadly disease.

“I mean, so what we’re not meant to be, we still make each other happy.”

Sif stilled at that. A little smile tugged at her lips. “Yeah,” she said. “We do, don’t we? Do I?”

“You make me happy,” Richard assured her. “Who else do I have to complain to about my boring job and idiot friends?”

Sif laughed. “And you make me happy,” she told him. “So I guess… we continue to make each other happy. For now.”

Richard nodded in agreement, pressing a little kiss against her cheek.

“For now.”

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

Except it was never that easy.

Things changed between them after that. Sif still saw Richard the same way she always had, but there was that added hint of disappointment. Whatever they had, no matter how good it was between them, it wasn’t going to last. It was temporary. And even though they made each other happy – or perhaps _content_ was a more apt word – Sif felt like she was lying to herself every day.

The mark on her leg stubbornly remained, its flames becoming a little more intense each day, and Sif started to understand what people said. She hated it, hated what it was doing to her happiness, but curiosity got the best of her each time her gaze fell on it. What did it mean? Was the other person alright? What mark did they have of her, anyway?

She was starting to feel attached to a picture on her leg. Just great.

But Richard never ceased to amaze her. Even with the comfort between them slipping through their fingers, he stubbornly remained by her side, caring for her when she needed it. He’d noticed her growing fascination with the mark too, though honestly it had probably been difficult to miss. When on one Friday night he watched her absentmindedly rub the flames sprouting from the spear yet again, he jumped up from the couch and grabbed both their coats, throwing her hers.

“Where are we going?” Sif asked.

“An expert,” Richard answered calmly.

They drove to a church just beside the Police District headquarters. Sif felt uncertain, but when she spotted the sign on the building doors she barked out a laugh.

“No way,” she told Richard. “Take me to some psychic or medium or whatever if you want. I’ll even talk to an actual priest.”

“You’re agnostic,” Richard reminded her as he got out of the car.

“Yeah, well, I’ll take religious waffle over this any day,” Sif muttered even as she followed him.

What kind of private investigator holed up in a church anyway?

They went in through a side entrance, passing the chapel and walking up to what was otherwise probably the priest’s office. Richard stood by the door patiently, waiting for Sif to open it herself.

Sif took a deep breath. She didn’t want to do this. But she was so bloody aware of her leg, how someone else had unknowingly taken claim over it.

She went in.

The woman sitting behind the desk was relatively young; no older than Sif, she imagined. Her long black hair looked unkept, braided, but it was as if the woman had gone to bed with the braid in several nights in a row. Tufts were sticking out everywhere, and along with her wrinkled faded jeans and oversized black woollen jumper it made her look dishevelled. Stacks of paper were scattered around the office, a few different versions of annotated bibles the only indication that the investigator shared this office with an actual priest. Her mess had taken over the room, and it made Sif cringe, thinking back to her own orderly desk.

God, she hated PIs.

“I hope this won’t take long,” the woman behind the desk drawled as she leafed through a mess of a file. “I’m busy. Not to mention that my office was supposed to close five minutes ago.”

Richard cleared his throat. “Um. Yes. Sorry about that. But my girlfriend needs your help.”

That sparked the woman’s attention. For a second her hands stilled before she carefully closed the file and finally looked up at the couple that had entered her office.

Sif was taken aback by the intensity of the woman’s gaze. Her blueish-green eyes were sharp and calculated, but feverish. They scanned Sif’s entire body from head to toe, and Sif almost felt like the woman could see right through her clothes, her skin, her bones into her heart and soul. It was decidedly unnerving.

Finally, the PI smiled and gestured to the seats across from her. “Please.”

Sif and Richard sat down, and the woman stuck out her hand, her eyes still trained on Sif.

“Loki,” she spoke with a hint of a smile. Sif lifted her chin, refusing to look weak under the scrutiny of the PI. She felt like a shark was eyeing her up. Or a snake.

“Sif,” she replied, shaking the woman’s hand. The grip lasted for a second longer than appropriate, but neither woman backed down as the staring contest continued. Sif just couldn’t get a read on this woman; technically they were rivals, what with Sif being a police detective, but Loki didn’t know that. So what was the PI looking for?

When they finally let go, Richard cleared his throat. “Also, I’m Richard,” he tried. “The boyfriend.”

Loki turned her predatory gaze to him, and he instantly seemed to shrink back a little. Loki only gave him a little nod and a smile. “Pleasure.” She then turned back to Sif again.

“Now, _you_ ,” she spoke. “Dragging your boyfriend along for a solo mark consultation. Aren’t you intriguing?”

“He dragged me along, actually,” Sif replied coldly. “I don’t care much for PIs poking around in my life.”

Loki’s smile sharpened at that, sending goosebumps across Sif’s skin. Something about this woman felt wrong. _Dangerous._ She wondered what went on behind that feverish gaze.

“Quite right,” Loki replied softly before raising her voice back to a normal level. “But you’re here now. So show me.”

Sif sighed. She got up and moved to the side of the desk, Loki eagerly following her movements. Sif finally raised her pant leg for what felt like the hundredth time. She supposed it was a good thing she tended to wear suits for her job; had she had an affinity for skinny jeans, this would’ve been far more frustrating, she was sure.

Loki’s eyes narrowed as she saw the spear glinting. Without even asking, as if both Sif and Richard had vanished and only the mark was left, she dropped to her knees, right into Sif’s personal space. She rolled up her jumper sleeves a little, freeing her hands and revealing a tattoo of silver bands adorning her wrists like simple bracelets. She then proceeded to gently trace the spear with her touch.

Richard let out a choked little sound of what was probably protest, but Sif just let it happen. She watched as Loki became entranced, escaped tufts of hair falling in her face as she moved in close to study every detail.

“Interesting,” the woman muttered. “Not your average mark. No flowers, no animals, no words. Except…”

She lifted her gaze to meet Sif’s, and in that moment Sif felt her breath hitch for just a split second. Time seemed to slow. She felt herself tower over Loki, watched the sharp woman knelt just in front of her. Even with the massive height difference, she could feel the electricity around Loki humming as the woman sat far too close, her cool hands still pressed against Sif’s skin. Why was the air so stifling all of a sudden?

“You have Norse runes in your mark,” Loki marvelled. “How exceptional. And rare.”

Sif swallowed. “Can you read them?” she asked.

Loki broke her gaze then, returning to staring at the mark again, and Sif felt like she could breathe a little better. “Sadly no,” the PI told her. “I just recognise them, but I can’t translate them, not off the top of my head anyway. I’m going to have to copy them down if that’s alright, and I’ll get to researching.”

She got up and moved out of Sif’s personal space to grab a pencil and a piece of paper. She quickly scribbled the runes down along with a simple sketch of the spear and flames before grabbing an empty file and putting the little note in it.

Finally, she turned back to the couple. “Normally I would ask you about yourself about now,” she told them, “but I really don’t have the time. I’m not here that often, so if you want to contact me and tell me more or get an update on my findings…”

She grabbed a golden sharpie – _honestly_ , Sif thought, _what self-respecting detective has golden sharpies_ – and lifted Sif’s coat sleeve to write a phone number on the inside of Sif’s forearm.

“Contact me on this number,” she said. “That phone should always be on. If I don’t answer, expect me to be in serious trouble.” Her eyes glinted with mischief as she said it though, that feverish element returning. Sif nodded carefully.

“Thanks.”

“Alright, I think that’s enough for one day,” Richard piped up, and Sif jumped a little. She’d almost forgotten about him. “Thanks for your help, miss Loki, but um, yeah, we’ve still got, um, dinner waiting at home, so, yeah. Thanks. See you around.”

Loki shifted her gaze to burn a hole into Richard’s skull, and Sif rolled her eyes, grabbing her poor boyfriend’s hand. “Come on, then,” she told him. “Let’s go eat.”

Before she left the office, she turned around one final time. “Thanks,” she told Loki slightly awkwardly as she raised her arm. “For this, and, you know…”

But Loki had moved behind her desk again, waving away the words as she opened another file. Sif sighed and shook her head before finally closing the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was wondering what the "Kriegsen" at the beginning of the chapter was about (I know I was when I re-read it), it's the last name I decided to give Sif. Also, if anyone that reads this is from Norway/Oslo or has been to Oslo, I do apologise but as a non-Norwegian I'm just pulling everything from Google Maps and, if I have to, Google Translate. Yikes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fun facts: I know nothing about how police precincts truly work. I go on what I learn from what seem the most accurate tv shows that contain police officers and such. If I'm horrendously wrong, let me know (for example on [tumblr](https://queer-crusader.tumblr.com/), I'd love to learn more)!

When Sif woke up the next morning, her mark was gone.

She stared at her bare leg with wide eyes. How was this possible? What did it mean? Was Sif free?

She didn’t have time to process it too much however, having to quickly shower, grab some toast from the kitchen and rush off to work. She was already late, and after a rather lacklustre week she didn’t want to call on the wrath of her team captain.

Thor noticed immediately that something was different, of course. He was just on his way out to the car park as she walked in, ready to go on patrol with Fandral, who was most likely still on his way to the precinct.

“Sif!” Thor called out. He smiled and pulled her in for a hug, which Sif accepted with a smile. “You look good. Are things getting better?”

Sif only then realised she hadn’t even told him about the mark yet. To her frustration she felt her cheeks turn red, and she quickly looked away. “They are,” she told him. “I still need to figure some stuff out, but if you want we could grab a beer tonight?” It was their code for ‘let’s get together and chat about life, using alcohol to make deep social interaction easier’. Thor nodded enthusiastically, knowing exactly what she meant.

“I am down,” he told her before letting go of her and hurrying off to grab his coat. “Half past seven, at Bar 53?”

Sif nodded. “I’ll make sure to grab us the moose table.” It was their favourite, simply because a fake stuffed moose head hung on the wall above it. Thor grinned.

“Perfect.”

He rushed out then, leaving Sif alone in a sea of cluttered desks and half-awake colleagues. She sighed. She hadn’t even had time to grab herself some coffee. The rush of not having a mark would have to keep her going for now, she supposed.

She just about managed to make it to lunchtime unscathed, feeling drained from all the paperwork she’d been saddled with. This was the moment she’d been waiting for, however. As soon as the clock struck one, she practically jumped up from her seat, rushing to the break room to make herself a strong cup of coffee. As she walked, she pulled out her phone and typed in the number written on her arm in gold sharpie.

She made sure the break room was empty before calling. When the other side picked up after only one ring, she instantly straightened, feeling that nervous excitement again she’d felt upon waking.

“It’s gone!” she practically shouted into the phone.

There was an awkward little moment of silence before Loki replied.

_“…I’m terribly sorry, but who is this?”_

_Introductions. Right._ Sif had forgotten that Loki didn’t actually have her number.

“It’s Sif Kriegsen, from yesterday,” she replied, feeling a blush tinge her cheeks.

 _“Ah yes, the one with the boyfriend.”_ Loki sounded distracted. Sif almost felt insulted; she hated being ignored.

“Yes, that one,” she snapped. “Did you hear what I just said?”

_“Yes, gone, I heard… Hold on – you mean your mark vanished?”_

Sif huffed. At least she was getting through to the PI.

“Yup. Or it’s not on my leg anymore, at least. As far as I can tell, it’s not anywhere else either. What do you suppose it means?”

 _“Well, it’d be weird for you to only be fated to someone for a week. No-one changes that drastically that quickly, at least not twice in a week. You sure you checked…_ everywhere _?”_

It took a second before Sif realised what Loki was asking. “That is frankly none of your business!” she snapped, her cheeks reddening even further. She was really starting to dislike Loki more and more with each minute of interaction. Loki only laughed, her voice dropping a little.

_“Just checking. Well, if you’re sure. Maybe they died.”_

“You sound disappointed,” Sif remarked.

 _“Well, I hate losing clients,”_ Loki drawled in reply. _“Clients are money. And your case was so interesting too.”_

“You found anything on the runes?” That would be very quick. If Sif’s supposed soulmate had died, there was not much point in learning about the now-vanished mark, but her detective instinct was tugging at her, filling her with curiosity and a need to track down any lead that presented itself.

 _“Did you not hear me when I said I was busy?”_ came the reply, and Sif had to bite her lip to keep herself from snarking back. _“No, I haven’t translated them yet. I’ve got the research open on my phone though. Sadly, I can’t promise that I’ll be able to work on it anytime soon.”_

“Still busy?” Sif bit. A low chuckle came in reply.

_“Naturally.”_

“What is it that’s got your attention, then, if my case is so interesting but you don’t even have time to look at it?”

 _“It may surprise you, miss Kriegsen, but I do in fact have a life,”_ Loki replied curtly. She’d clearly run out of patience. _“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”_

“To do what, exactly?” Sif pushed. This time, Loki didn’t laugh. Yet somehow, Sif could still practically hear her smirk over the phone.

_“Get into trouble.”_

And with that, she hung up.

Sif swore loudly, resisting the urge to throw her phone across the room. This, this was exactly why she hated PIs. Arrogant bastards, the lot of them, with a work ethic more irregular than a sex worker’s periods. She frowned at that thought. That was definitely not one of her idioms. Fandral had to be rubbing off on her.

She took the time to have lunch and clear her head a little. Just before she had to get back to work she tried calling the number again, but to no-one’s surprise it went straight to voicemail.

 _Fine then_ , she thought as she beelined to the bathroom. _What use are you to me if I don’t have a mark anyway?_ She ran the golden phone number under the tap, but even with soap and vicious scrubbing it refused to be washed off, despite some of the water turning gold.

“Fucking _sharpies_!”

Someone let out a little shriek from inside one of the bathroom stalls, and Sif quickly rushed out, trying to hold back a hysterical little giggle. What even was her life? She honestly didn’t know anymore.

The rest of the day went by quietly, but Sif felt restless. Loki’s voice, her words, kept haunting her throughout it all.

_Get into trouble._

Whatever it meant, it better not be illegal.

Thor returned to the precinct at five-thirty, looking tired and sweaty. Fandral trailed in behind him, looking possibly even worse.

“Rough day, boys?” she asked. Fandral threw up his hands.

“I am _so done_ ,” he replied to no-one in particular. Someone in the back of the room told him to man up, and he casually flipped them off. “You fill her in, Thor, while I’m gonna find caffeine and inject it into my veins. Or maybe some alcohol. A lot of alcohol.”

Thor nodded as he let himself fall into Sif’s desk chair. “I’m with him, you know,” he told her as Fandral disappeared towards the break room. “Today was ridiculous.”

Sif handed him a tissue and with a grateful nod he wiped some of the sweat off his face. “Five robberies. _Five!_ I swear, Sif, I thought I was fit, but it turns out I was _not_ built for long-distance. I’m a sprinter, not a marathon runner. Fandral’s saved my ass several times today. I swear though, our district is going to the dogs. Do you have any water?”

Sif handed him her water bottle too, and again he nodded gratefully before taking a long, deep drink. “I am not writing reports today. Fuck reports. I don’t say it often, but fuck work.”

“What was that, Odinsen?”

Thor closed his eyes in defeat, instant regret washing over his face as the deep voice of their captain sounded from across the room.

“Nothing, sir,” Thor replied as Heimdall Fröst, Oslo’s most famous police chief, walked over. “Just a long day is all.”

Heimdall smiled, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. Sif had to disguise her smirk behind her hand, pretending to yawn as she saw where this was going.

“That’s quite alright,” the captain spoke. “We all have those, don’t we Kriegsen?”

“Yessir,” she replied with as straight a face as she could manage. “All the time.”

“You know how I relax after a hard day of work? I like to _read_.”

Thor narrowed his eyes, while Sif was now actively biting her lip. “Any recommendations, sir?” she asked.

“Files. Take your work home, Odinsen. I’ll let you off the hook for now about sticking around to do the work, but that’s only because you smell worse than a men’s locker room. I expect you to have written at least three of your five reports when you return for duty tomorrow.”

As Heimdall walked off, looking far too smug, Thor let out a loud groan. “Are you _kidding_? And what are you laughing at, Sif, don’t you dare –”

He fell silent as his gaze tracked something behind Sif. She turned around to see what he’d noticed and fell her grin vanish.

Two officers and a paramedic were escorting Loki down the corridor. Her back was ramrod straight, but her cuffed hands looked unnaturally red from where Sif was standing, and her face was covered in black streaks of what had to be soot.

“What the hell did you do?” Sif muttered to herself.

Beside her, Thor scrambled up out of the desk chair, toppling it in his haste. Sif raised her eyebrows at him, slightly taken aback.

“Are you okay?”

“I eh… I have to –” he stammered as he moved toward the corridor. Fandral returned from the break room then, joining them with a steaming mug. “What’s up with him?” he asked Sif, nodding at Thor, who had just bumped into someone’s desk.

“Someone was arrested,” Sif answered distractedly. She didn’t hear Fandral’s next words, instead following Thor out into the corridor. Loki had vanished from sight, but Sif was pretty sure she knew where the PI had been taken. She headed down the hallway, Thor trailing behind her, towards the interrogation chambers.

She found Loki in chamber number two. Thor stood motionless beside her as they watched from the observation room how one of their colleagues tried to coax an answer, anything, out of the PI.

“You know her?” Sif asked quietly. Thor nodded.

“I thought she was dead,” he replied.

Sif didn’t know what the relationship was between the two, but it felt inappropriate to point out that Loki had been holed up in a church literally within walking distance of where they’d been practicing their shooting just a week earlier. She decided not to say anything for now.

After about ten minutes of watching Loki refusing to speak, Sif turned to Thor again.

“Come on,” she told him. “Let’s get a beer.”

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

“She’s my sister,” Thor explained over his second pint.

They were in Bar 53, both having changed at the station into more comfortable clothes before heading over. The fake moose head was looking down on them as Sif raised her eyebrows, leaning back in surprise.

“Really? I hate to pry, but the family likeness…”

Thor shook his head. “Adopted,” he clarified. “We grew up in the same foster home, and luckily we were adopted together when we were about twelve. She was already a troublemaker then.”

Sif had to take a moment to process this information. “You never told me you were adopted.”

“It never came up.” Thor took another big gulp of his beer before wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“We were a real family,” he told Sif. “Loki was under my protection. We’ve always been close, like real siblings. Pulled a lot of pranks on our foster family, that sort of thing. I was never as bad as Loki though. She managed to anger a lot of people. I’ve had to fight plenty of other foster kids because she managed to push just the right buttons. Not that she couldn’t defend herself, but I just never wanted her to have to fight if I could help it, you know? Anyway. The only person who could ever truly control her was our adoptive mother.”

He gave Sif a woeful smile then. “Our parents were a blessing in disguise,” he continued. “But they also inadvertently separated us. I took a liking to Odin, you see, while Loki bonded most strongly with Frigga. I started to lose sight of her.”

Sif nodded. As a detective she heard plenty of stories, and siblings losing touch with each other was a surprisingly common one in the interrogation room. “So when did you think she… you know?” she asked carefully.

“In our first year at the Academy,” Thor told her, and something clicked in Sif’s memory.

“When you started failing all your classes for about half a year?”

Thor nodded. “She dropped off the face of the earth when I told her I was gonna be police,” he explained. “She finished school a year before me, clever as she was, and moved out as soon as she could. We tried to keep in touch, mostly via letters, but when I let her know where I was headed after graduation the final letter I received was essentially a goodbye note.”

Sif raised her eyebrows. “Any idea why?”

Thor shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to her in that year before I graduated,” he admitted. “Her letters didn’t reveal much, but it sounded like she was using… Well, her ways to survive and get by always have skirted the lines of legality. So that was probably one reason why she broke contact. But she also never liked Odin. And Odin was a police officer too, so… I suppose she felt betrayed.”

“What made you think she’d died though?” Sif asked. Thor let out a mirthless laugh.

“What, you think that I, as a policeman and brother, wasn’t going to look into where she’d gone? Wasn’t gonna do my best to track her down and make sure my sister was in fact alright, even if she was unwilling to talk to me?” He shook his head. “I tried my best, I really did. But all I found was a death certificate.”

The words hung heavy in the air, darkening their little corner of the bar like black smoke, heavy and greasy with soot. Whatever Loki had thought at the time, it had been serious enough for her to go to great lengths to hide herself from Thor, the brother she’d grown up with since she was a little girl.

Which made it all the more interesting that she’d been so close to him all along. Sif wondered if Loki had been aware of it when she settled in the church, and if so, what her motives had been.

Thor shook his head, trying to clear it before taking another sip of his beer to wash away the bitter taste of grief. “But what about you?” he asked, trying to muster up a smile. “We came here originally to discuss your life struggles, didn’t we?”

Sif laughed at that. “God, I forgot,” she muttered, absentmindedly rubbing her foot against the outside of her calf like she’d grown to make a habit of, even now that the mark had vanished again.

“I eh, woke up with a mark,” she admitted.

Thor’s eyes widened. “Richard?”

“Yeah, that’s where it got difficult,” Sif spoke, as if the fact that it hadn’t been her boyfriend had been the main problem. Thor knew her well enough to see through that, however, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, fine,” Sif laughed again, “I hated the mark in the first place, but it not being Richard did make things more complicated. And awkward. Like, drink-two-bottles-of-merlot-to-process-this-shit awkward.”

Thor laughed at that, raising his glass. “That’s the Sif I know.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not all,” Sif warned. She told him the rest of how her week had gone down; the relationship struggles, the lack of sleep and the distracting thoughts surrounding the mark. How Richard had finally dragged her to an actual PI, of all things.

“No!” Thor gasped in mock-horror.

“Yeah,” Sif replied, “I know right? No wonder he’s not my mark.”

They both laughed, though Sif felt bad for doing it. She hadn’t asked for complications like this. Her life had been perfectly on track. Then again…

“It’s gone now, though,” she told Thor. A blessing in disguise, she supposed. “Woke up this morning, the day after seeing the PI, and it had vanished.”

Thor leaned back, nursing his pint in his large hands. “Huh.”

“Yeah.” Sif knocked back her own beer at that. “Lucky me.”

She wasn’t about to admit that Loki had been her PI. It just didn’t seem right; one of her best friends’ sister had faked her death, and Sif had stumbled upon her – and quite strongly disliked her – before Thor had. Without even knowing just how much this person meant to Thor.

She felt like she could make up for it, though.

“Want me to get you in a room with her?”

Thor practically flew at her for that, hugging her tight. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah, I’ll pull a detective card,” she laughed as she tried not to get smothered by his biceps. “I know they’ll hesitate to let you near her because of family stuff and it’s not your department and all, but I’m sure I can do something.”

Part of her felt bad; Thor didn’t even ask her why she was doing it. He didn’t even suspect it was because of some potentially misplaced guilt. They were friends – that should be enough.

Hugging him back, she was already trying to think of how she was going to get Thor into one room with Loki. A cell would be easier surveillance-wise, but she didn’t want to do this behind people’s backs if she didn’t have to. Her other option was to get him into an interrogation room with Loki. She’d probably need a good excuse, and to get one she’d need to be in on the investigation, she suspected. Since her department was Homicides, which – hopefully – had nothing to do with Loki’s arrest, she’d have to pull a few strings, but she was sure she could get it done. Thor was worth the effort.

Okay, so maybe this was out of friendship as well.

Though if she was _truly_ honest with herself, personal curiosity formed a large part of her motivations too. What had Loki done? And what had happened to her hands? She supposed she would find out. But first, she would need to make a few phone calls.

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

Heimdall looked at Loki through the one-way mirror. Sif could feel him contemplating beside her as they stood and watched the PI. It was the next day, and Thor officially didn’t have to go on patrol for another two hours. He’d arrived at the station early, however, all five of his reports finished and his uniform on. He was currently pacing outside, waiting for the signal of his captain before he could go in.

“You think Thor will evoke a reaction from him?” Heimdall asked.

“They grew up together, sir,” Sif reminded him. “Practically siblings. Loki faked her death, but she never strayed far from Thor.” She was guessing here, not knowing for certain if Loki had done it knowingly or even if she’d been Oslo for long. “They have a history.”

Heimdall stroked his chin, and Sif watched him nervously. “May I ask, sir –” she tried, but he barked out a laugh.

“No you may not, Detective Kriegsen,” he told her, putting her in her place again. “As you full well know. This is not your case. You do not get to know the details. But I do thank you for your help. With this tip, I’m sure we’ll make some good progress.”

Sif held back a frustrated groan, instead giving her captain a curt little nod. “It’s not a problem, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Heimdall said. “Now get out of here. And tell Odinsen he’s free to go in.”

Sif nodded, doing as her captain told her. When she gave Thor the all-clear, he seemed to turn a little green.

“Thanks,” he muttered before straightening his cuffs and finally entering the interrogation chamber, to face his sister for the first time in seven years.


	4. Chapter 4

“She hates me.”

Thor stared brokenly into the glass of water that Sif had handed him. Sif’s heart broke as she saw him sitting there; he’d been in the room for no more than ten minutes before re-emerging again, his hands balled into fists and his bottom lip quivering. He looked like a kicked puppy.

“You know what the first thing was that she said when she saw me?” he asked. “She said, ‘Oh fuck.’ Not in a ‘ _whoops!_ ’ kinda way either, but like, a proper ‘ _fuck_ ’. An angry one. Or disappointed even.”

Sif put her hand on his shoulder, and with a sad little smile he reached up to squeeze it. “Thank you for arranging this for me, Sif, but sadly not much came of it.”

“Did she say anything else?” Sif asked. Surely that couldn’t have been it. But Thor shrugged.

“She asked me if I knew,” he said. “When I made clear that I wasn’t sure what she was on about, she just sort of laughed in an unsettling way. She told me I wasn’t worth her time today.”

He winced as Sif’s nails dug into his shoulder, and she quickly let go of him. To her surprise, she was seething. How dare Loki do that to her own brother? How could anyone take Thor’s hope and trust and shred it to bloody pieces in front of him like that!?

Her feet moved without her permission then; she could only just hear Heimdall’s low voice boom in protest, some command that she ignored as she threw open the door to the interrogation room.

As soon as Loki set eyes on her, the PI started to laugh almost hysterically. “Oh, of _course_ you are a detective,” she wheezed as she brushed away tears on her sleeve. “I did wonder how Thor got permission to talk to me – it couldn’t have been his own idea. That was you, I assume?”

Sif slammed her hands on the table, and to her satisfaction, Loki winced a little.

“You think you can play with his emotions like that?” she growled. “Maybe you don’t mind being cruel to him, but while you were gone playing detective and letting your brother do the real work, Thor actually found friends, _good_ friends, who will not _hesitate_ to put a bullet in the skull of someone who’s wronged him and make it look like an accident.”

Loki raised an eyebrow, a mad grin stretching her mouth too wide. “I do hope your boss isn’t listening,” she told Sif. “I don’t think he’d take such words lightly.”

“He’ll help us bury the body,” Sif promised. “So what did Thor do that makes you think you are justified in that stunt you just pulled?”

Loki’s grin melted into seeming nonchalance then, and she leant back in her metal chair. Sif noticed however that the PI was avoiding her gaze.

“He became the opposite of who I needed,” she said, shrugging. “I needed to get away from him. Stand on my own two feet, if you like.”

Sif snorted at that. “That is the worst fucking excuse I have ever heard. And it doesn’t answer my question either.”

“It answers the question you wanted to ask,” Loki said simply.

Sif’s gaze slipped down to Loki’s hands then. They were wrapped in thick bandages, which had in all likeliness been applied by the paramedic yesterday. The soot had been washed off her face, but the exhaustion and that same manic energy from last week were still there.

With a frustrated sigh she sat down opposite the PI.

“Fine. So you faked your death to get away from your overbearing big brother. Bit fucking overkill if you ask me, but hey, I guess you’re just stupendously dramatic.”

Loki shot up at that, fury distorting her features. “You don’t know me,” she spat. “You have no right to make any assumptions about me or my fucking past.”

Sif felt the tips of her ears redden at that. Her heart was beating painfully in her chest, blood rushing in her ears. Somehow, Loki was destroying all her carefully built walls and defences.

She too stood up, rolling up her blouse sleeves. “I don’t care if you’re injured,” she hissed back, her face only inches away from the PI’s. “I’m not on your case and I will happily beat the shit out of you.”

Loki let out a low laugh at that, the same one as from their phone call. The sound went right through Sif, rooting her to the spot.

“Oh, trust me,” Loki spoke in that low tone, her voice hoarse. “I can take you.”

Her hands shot out then, grabbing Sif’s bared forearm. “How nice of you to keep this,” she spoke, her tone suddenly switched to something far more casual, hiding the vicious strength of her grip. Sif winced.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she spat, still reeling from the sudden change and not knowing whether to attack, defend or just let it happen. “It wouldn’t wash off.”

Loki raised a single eyebrow. “You try hot water and soap?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Maybe your skin is porous. I’m sure with a good, _hot_ shower it’ll come right off.”

Sif finally yanked her arm free at that. “You’re out of line,” she hissed.

“Why? I’m pretty sure your relationship is crumbling to dust by the minute.”

“Are you incapable of making distinction between fighting and flirting!?”

Loki laughed at that, throwing her head back and revealing more bandages as her hair moved. “That does sound vaguely familiar, yes,” she admitted. “You don’t happen to know my ex, do you?”

Sif sat down again, feeling completely bewildered. How had no-one come in yet to drag her ass out?

“What did you do, anyway?” she asked, pointing to all the bandages. “Set fire to someone?”

“Wow, you really have a low opinion of me.”

“Well, you haven’t exactly given me much to view you otherwise.”

Loki smiled. “No, I haven’t, have I?” She sat back, spreading her bandaged hands as far as she could with her cuffs on, palms facing upward. “I didn’t set fire to a person,” she told Sif. “Otherwise you would’ve heard about it, I’m sure. No, I simply burned down my own apartment.”

There was a knock on the other side of the mirror then. Sif looked up, outraged that they were gonna pull her out now of all moments.

“Why would you do that?” she asked, her tone incredulous. Another more insistent knock came, and Sif flipped off the mirror, instantly regretting the move when she remembered it was most likely Heimdall on the other side of the glass. Whoops.

“See if Thor ever gets any news,” Loki told her. “He’ll understand. Or so I should hope. He knows me well enough. In the meantime…” She looked around with a frown. “You have a pen?”

Sif huffed. Why was it that anything involving Loki made her life so chaotic? None of this made any sense anymore.

She pulled a pen from her jacket pocket. “Please don’t stab me with this,” she told Loki sternly before handing it to her. Loki simply smirked.

“As if.”

She took the pen, and wrote on the back of Sif’s hand:

GUNGNIR

“Look that up when you get home,” she told Sif. “I suspect that is what the spear was meant to be. I’m still working on the translations, but as you can see…” She raised her cuffed wrists. “I’m a bit tied up.”

Sif withheld a groan at the awful pun, instead taking the pen back and getting up.

“Well,” she said, “I would say it was lovely seeing you again, but that would be an outright lie. Have fun in jail.” And with that she left the room.

Heimdall was waiting for her out in the corridor, his arms crossed. That was never a good sign.

“Would you mind telling me what the hell that little stunt was about?”

“You heard, you saw what she said to Thor –” Sif started, anger rising within her, but Heimdall shut her up with a single finger pointed right at her.

“You know damn well that doesn’t matter, Kriegsen,” he spoke with an almost equal amount of contained fury. “You were way out of line!”

Sif refrained herself from biting back something she knew she would regret. She thought Heimdall would have her back; everyone at the precinct loved Thor, no matter what department they were on, and they all came together as a team to back the gentle giant up when he was in trouble or feeling low. Heimdall was usually no exception.

“My apologies, Captain,” she managed between gritted teeth.

“Yeah, I’m sure you feel real sorry,” Heimdall spoke. “At least you got her to confess that she did in fact burned the flat down herself. Now go back to your desk and let me think of what disciplinary action is appropriate.”

“Yes, sir.”

She was about halfway down the corridor when Thor caught up with her, grabbing her arm and spinning her around.

“Ow! Thor, can we do this later? I’m not in the mood!”

“You know her!?” Thor growled. Ah yeah. There was that.

“I, eh…” Sif rubbed her neck with her free hand. Ah, screw it. “She was my PI. The one I went to for my mark.”

Thor reeled back a little at that, and Sif waited impatiently for the information to sink in. She just wanted to get back to her desk and cool down from this infuriating encounter.

“So… You went to her. Loki has been working as a PI.”

“Yes.”

“And you knew who she was?”

Sif shook her head at that. “I had no idea. Not until you told me yesterday. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, I guess.” She sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound, she supposed. “Loki’s office was in the church right behind HQ. I don’t know how long she’d been there, but it seemed pretty stacked with files and papers that seemed to be hers.”

It took a moment, but when the realisation settled within Thor, his whole body seemed to crumple.

“She was right under my nose,” he muttered as he slid down the wall. “All that time. And I thought she was dead. Why would she do that?”

He looked up with glistening eyes, and Sif felt a stab of sorrow for him in her heart. She sank down next to him, their shoulders pressed together.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Loki is _your_ sister, after all.” She sent Thor a brief smile.

“Hey, speaking of,” she said, “do you know what she meant with the whole message thing?”

Thor shook his head at that. “Whatever news it is that has upset her so much, it hasn’t reached me,” he told Sif. “To be honest, I’m a little scared to find out what it is. I doubt Loki will be the one to tell me, though. But that’s probably what she was asking me about when I tried to talk to her. Remember? She asked me if I knew.”

Sif nodded. It made sense.

“What would drive a person to burn down their own apartment, though?” she asked. To her surprise, Thor chuckled at that.

“Loki has always been a little bit of a pyromaniac,” he admitted. “She likes fire. Whatever frustration she must have felt, I’m impressed she managed to restrain herself and only burn down her own property rather than other people’s. The fact that she’s not committing public vandalism under the motto of bringing down the government anymore is a plus in my book.”

Sif had to laugh a little at that too. She could imagine it; a young Loki in her shabby, oversized clothes, wearing more black perhaps, not to mention an overabundance of eyeliner. Or maybe no makeup at all, in some protest against social rules. Little rebel Loki, lashing out at bus stops and alleyway walls. How radical she must have felt.

With a grunt she pushed off against the wall before helping Thor on his feet as well. “I need to go,” she told him, “before Heimdall skins me alive or whatever.” Before she could leave however, Thor grabbed her arm.

“I appreciate what you did for me today, Sif,” he told her sincerely. “Even if it seems like we didn’t get much out of it. This really meant a lot to me. Just to see her again, alive and well…”

Sif swallowed before pulling her friend in for a hug. “It’s nothing,” she told him, her voice muffled against his broad chest. When she let go, she caught him wiping his eyes, which she dutifully pretended not to see.

“Alright, go do some work,” Thor told her, letting out a shaky laugh. “If Heimdall gives you more trouble, just send him my way. I’ve been putting out the fires that crop up around Loki for years now, it’s sort of become my thing.”

Sif laughed at that. “Thanks, pal,” she said sincerely. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

Despite Thor’s promise, Sif still got in trouble. It was a battle she had to fight herself, she supposed – after all, it was her fault. In the end, Loki got to walk free because of her interference. It hadn’t been her case, and she had basically opened the conversation with what accounted as a death threat, so any confessions from Loki were declared void. Whoops. So by the end of the day, Sif had let an arsonist go free and was probably on the verge of being demoted.

Brunhilde winked as she slipped something from a flask into Sif’s coffee. “You look like you need it,” she told the detective. “Free of charge.”

Sif smiled bitterly. “Thanks, B.”

“B?” the coffeeshop manager asked as he walked by. Brunhilde rolled her eyes.

“Listen, Bruce, you’re the only one who gets to call me Hildi, and that’s because you’re American.”

Bruce shrugged apologetically at Sif. “That, but she also likes me,” he admitted to her, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. His employee kicked him in the shins for that.

“Why don’t we call you Val anymore, anyway?” Fandral asked over his own half-pint of IPA. Thor and Sif both shot a glare at him, but Brunhilde just shrugged.

“Because the Valkyries are dead.”

She played it off as if it was no big deal, but her eyes were hollow. She didn’t want to remember, which was why everyone had switched to calling her by her actual name after the event. It was a mouthful, but she wouldn’t let anyone give her a nickname other than simply ‘B’. Apart from Bruce, clearly. The American had his own past, and he liked to give other people with trauma a chance to work in a relatively stress-free environment. The officers suspected there was probably some weed circulating the workroom floor, but none of them cared enough to ask about it. They just wanted to see their ex-colleague get better. So they supported whichever way Brunhilde decided to cope with her past and never complained about anything she asked of them.

Fandral seemed to have realised his mistake, for he was now hiding his face in his beer. Sif lifted her own coffee cup in an effort to change the subject. “I needed this, Brunhilde. Seriously. If I’m not demoted or fired after today, consider some form of miracle in play.”

Thor nodded and gulped down his own coffee. “The same probably goes for me,” he admitted after putting his cup down again. “I would say I’ve missed Loki, but this kind of mess… Yeah, I’ve not missed this.”

Almost as if on cue, the door to the Brenneriet swung open to reveal a shabby-looking Loki, dressed in the same tattered clothes she’d been arrested in the day before. Both she and the police officers all froze as their gazes met, but then, as if none the wiser of the newly tense atmosphere, Loki sauntered in and walked up to one of the high tables.

Sif once again felt her blood boil. _Really?_ That woman had the audacity to come here and even after seeing her newly made enemies, _still_ decided this was the best place to get a drink!?

Bruce seemed to have picked up on the tension, in contrast to _some people_ , because with a little cough he told her: “Eh, we close in twenty minutes.”

“I just need a coffee,” Loki told him quietly, though not quiet enough for Sif not to hear her. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”

Sif snorted, and Loki’s head snapped up. “You could get a coffee in any other bar,” she pointed out. “It’s not that hard to just turn around and find somewhere else.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a long day,” Loki sneered, but there was no real edge to it. She seemed more tired than Sif felt, and that was saying something. Thor was about to stand up, but Loki tensed up as if ready to bolt, so Sif placed her hand on her friend’s arm to stop him. She wasn’t sure why, but even though she’d never met anyone who could piss her off this well by simply breathing in her direction, she didn’t want to chase Loki off.

The woman was an enigma, she realised. A puzzle. A case to crack. And Sif wasn’t a detective for nothing.

“You’re right,” she told Loki, who frowned in confusion at the sudden change of heart. “We’re all tired. Just… drink your coffee. We’ll mind our own business.”

Thor bristled at that, but Sif elbowed him in the ribs. _Don’t chase her off_ , she mouthed, and he sighed and nodded.

After about five minutes of awkward drinking, Thor had to rush away on a Jane-related emergency. He gave Loki one last conflicted look before finally tearing himself away, pressing a kiss against the top of Sif’s head and heading out. Fandral excused himself a few minutes later, having finished his beer and supposedly needing his beauty sleep for an early shift tomorrow. Sif understood that he didn’t want to sit in this weird atmosphere, so she let him go with a slightly forced smile plastered on her face.

Only she and Loki were left in the coffeeshop. Brunhilde had vanished to take inventory, and Bruce hadn’t even come up with an excuse to hide. She sighed before turning to face Loki, who was carefully keeping her gaze on her coffee cup.

“Where are you staying?” Sif asked, and Loki’s eyes snapped up.

“None of your business,” she answered viciously, and Sif quickly threw up her hands.

“Fine,” she retorted. “From what I gathered, you burned down your flat, but if you have a backup bed then good on you. And if you don’t, then I don’t even know why I fucking bother. Have fun sleeping on a park bench or whatever. Remember to change those.” She pointed to Loki’s bandages, which were starting to look shabby. Loki looked down at her hands, the walls she had thrown up a moment earlier starting to crumble a little again. But she didn’t reply, and with a huff of frustration, Sif too finally left, leaving the dishevelled PI to stare into her coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't really edit these chapters before uploading them, meaning that if you catch a mistake, feel free to point it out to me! Also come stalk me on [tumblr](https://queer-crusader.tumblr.com/), I've been receiving some lovely support here and I enjoy talking to you guys (or even just silently reblogging my mutual's posts, as one does on that wonderful hellsite) <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Head's up - there's some descriptions of someone throwing up, as well as descriptions of burn scars in this one. Just to let you know <3

The mental image of Loki, looking so forlorn and abandoned in that shop, plagued Sif’s mind over the next days. Thor seemed shaken too – every time Sif saw him, he looked more and more like a puppy in a rainstorm, all sad and droopy and like nobody loved him. She wondered if he knew where Loki was, if he’d try to reach out now that he knew his sister was still alive. If Loki had perhaps reached out to him. She wasn’t staying at his place, that much was certain.

But Sif had other things to worry about too. Heimdall was still furious at her for what she’d done in the interrogation room, and she was forbidden for taking on any cases for an indefinite amount of time. She also had no access or rights to any firearms or other weaponry, which Sif found only fair. For now, she had to work on rapports and sort out the evidence room. That, on the other hand, she found a little harsh; surely she was above stupid little tasks like that.

Richard received an earful too of her problems. By now he was fully caught up on how Loki was essentially ruining her life, and how she’d been reduced to a lowly office clerk.

“You know, _I’m_ an office clerk,” he pointed out once, four days after Sif’s informal demotion.

“Yeah, I know,” Sif retorted, “but I was trained for more, you know? This is not what I signed up for! I’m meant to help people!”

Richard’s face clouded over at that, and Sif suddenly realised she had walked onto thin ice.

“I mean…”

“No, I don’t think you can take those words back,” Richard pointed out darkly. “You think my education was nothing much, since I’m just a _lowly office clerk_?”

“No, Rich, you’re putting words in my mouth…”

“Or that I don’t help people with the rapports I file and sort every day? You’re not useless, Sif, without you doing all the little tasks your captain has put you on right now, the precinct would be up to their ears in a clusterfuck of paperwork. Do you realise that? Do you realise how important that is?”

Sif opened her mouth, but before she could even get a word in, Richard was up and pacing.

“You know, ever since that bloody mark, it’s really been all about you, and I get it. You’re having a hard time, and I am totally here for you. But you know what? It’s kind of always been about you! I mean, do you even know how my week went?”

She wanted to answer. She really did. But Richard was right – she had no idea. With a harsh little laugh, he shook his head.

“Of course you don’t. I mean, the company is going through a major reshuffle, they’re cutting jobs here and there, _I_ nearly got cut – but of course you don’t know. I don’t even know if you care.”

“Of course I care!” Sif called out then, but Richard just huffed.

“You know, I do believe you,” he told her. “But I don’t know if I should. Everyone always tells me I put too much trust in people, and I’ll only be let down some day.”

Sif bit back tears. She knew this moment had been coming since the day she got her mark. But she couldn’t lose him. Not yet. Not now.

“I’m not some crutch for you to lean on, Sif,” he told her, and now he was choking up too. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Richard…”

He shook his head, stepping back as she got up to try and close the gap. “I need breathing space. Sif, I’m sorry, but I need to go.”

And before she even realised what he was saying, Richard had grabbed his jacket and was heading for the door.

“I’m gonna stay at Darcy’s,” he said as he slipped into his shoes. “But please… Don’t come to see me. I’ll be back when I’m ready. I just, I need to go.”

“Richard, you can’t just leave!” It almost sounded shrill, her voice having taken a desperate edge. But she was only answered with the slam of a hastily shut door.

Sif sat in shock for what felt like ages, staring at the wall. When the tears finally came, she wiped them away furiously, knowing they were only for herself. Richard deserved better than some goddamn self-pitying asshole cop.

Richard deserved better.

The tears came anyway, and kept coming until deep into the night.

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

It had to be about three in the morning when Sif was woken up by a knock.

She shot up from the couch, disoriented and dizzy as she took a moment to get her bearings. For a split second she thought Richard had come back already, wanting to apologise, but she knew better than that.

A second knock woke her from her thoughts, and with a sleep-hoarse “Coming, coming” she moved to open the door.

It was Loki.

Of course it was. Sif wanted to kick herself – she’d given the woman an open invitation, and if Loki still had her case file, she had Sif’s address.

“Wha?” she asked groggily. Loki rolled her eyes.

“D’you mind?”

 _Oh_. Sure. Whatever. The world was going to shit anyway, right? Sif stepped back, letting the PI into her little flat. It was a mess, with two empty wine bottles on the coffee table and a molten Ben  & Jerry’s tub sitting next to them, but she honestly couldn’t care less.

Loki carefully stepped forward, as if not fully sure if she were wanted or not. She was right to be wary; Sif was still drunk and ready to blame anyone and everyone – especially Loki – for her most recent slights. But at the end of the day, Loki had been willing to help her out with her mark even after it had vanished, and she was in need of a roof over her head. She was still wearing the same clothes and absolutely stank of sweat and soot. Her bandages had been taken off, at least.

“Shower’s there, couch… Well, you can see the couch, so. Make yourself at home.” She headed to her bedroom, turning back one more time to point at Loki, who was still measuring up the space. “Don’t fucking steal anything.” And with that, Sif went to hide in her room, closing the door a little more harshly behind her than intended.

 _Fuck. Fuck, fuckity fuck_ , she thought to herself. _Fucking Loki. Fucking… Richard, and marks, and fucking soulmates, and fucking relationships. People. Fuck._

With those thoughts, she fell asleep again, this time blissfully managing to remain unconscious until morning.

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

Oh dear _God_. Regrets were real.

Sif awoke with the worst headache, not to mention an abominable taste in her mouth. Seriously, something may have died in there.

She stumbled out of her bedroom and into the bathroom across the hallway, where she miserably emptied her stomach in the toilet. After hugging the porcelain for a good twenty minutes she managed to finally get back on her feet again to brush her teeth and get something in her that might soothe her stomach.

Except she had to go through the living room. Which was now occupied.

“Ah, fuck,” she muttered, her eyes landing on the body awkwardly stretched out on her couch, which was slightly too small. Loki lifted the pillow she had pressed over her face and shot a bleary look at Sif that was equally dissatisfied with the situation.

“Try the sound of vomit as your alarm clock,” the PI drawled.

“Try the feeling of it burning its way up your oesophagus as your alarm clock,” Sif bit back. Loki’s face contorted.

“That is vile.”

“Yeah, well, tough.” Sif turned to head to the kitchen, where she pulled out a pan and started rummaging around in the fridge. “You want breakfast?”

“Sure.” Loki tried to sound dismissive, but even hungover Sif could tell her guest was probably starving.

“Scrambled eggs?”

“Go for it.”

She cooked breakfast in silence, and behind her, Loki didn’t make a sound either. It was weird and awkward, but there was no way Sif was gonna socialise this early in the morning. Especially not when she was feeling this hungover. _Especially_ not with the bitch who trampled all over Thor’s big heart.

She put the plate down on the coffee table with just a little too much aggression, a bit of egg jumping off and the cutlery rattling painfully loud in the awkward silence. Loki didn’t comment, didn’t even thank her. She just quietly started eating her breakfast.

Sif sat down in the spare chair, not so subtly eyeing her guest as she ate. Loki had showered at least, and she was now wearing some of the dirty clothes from Sif’s hamper. The clothes were a little ill-fitting, but they didn’t look too bad. Her hair was back in a braid again, revealing some angry-looking burn marks running up Loki’s neck where her bandages had been. But at least they looked like they would heal okay.

Loki’s wrists, however…

Treated blisters covered Loki’s fingers, making it difficult for her to hold her cutlery. But the skin on her wrists was raw and pink, like it had been melted. Sif felt bile rise in her throat, but she managed to keep her stomach contents in this time.

But even with the terrible state of Loki’s wrists, it wasn’t the damaged skin that made her stare.

It was the silver bands running over the scars.

The tattoo Sif had absentmindedly noticed the first time she’d met Loki – a pair of handcuffs circling the PI’s wrists – was still there, perfectly intact. Which was not how normal tattoos worked.

Loki had a soulmate mark.

“You need any plasters for that?”

Sif pointed at the old blisters on Loki’s fingers that made it so difficult for her to eat, but even though she’d managed to avoid blurting out anything about the marks, Loki went completely still. Only her eyes moved, sliding up to meet Sif’s. Sif’s breath hitched – the pale, blueish green of those eyes had her absolutely mesmerised. After a moment of complete silence, Loki slowly lifted a forkful of egg to her mouth, defiantly refusing to answer.

“Guess not.” With a frustrated sigh Sif stood up, taking her plate towards the kitchen. She’d only finished half her breakfast, but she really wasn’t feeling hungry. Her food vanished into the bin along with her last shred of any will to live.

“Do you think I should call in sick?” she mused out loud, if only to annoy the PI, who was about as sociable as a brick wall right now. To no-one’s surprise, she didn’t receive an answer.

“I mean, I feel like shit. I need a day off. Not that Heimdall will happily grant me some leave, not with all the _important work_ I’ve got to catch up on…” Her voice trailed off as she recalled the argument from the night before. Jesus, she’d really been inconsiderate. And some of Richard’s stuff were still here…

She rushed off to the bathroom for a second round, losing any progress she’d made on curing her hangover by losing her breakfast again.

After about a minute she noticed a noise behind her. When she turned to look, she found Loki leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed.

“Need some help?” she asked. Sif let out a hoarse little laugh which quickly dissolved into a coughing fit, which resulted in more… well, barf. Before she could tell Loki to piss off however, the woman was knelt beside her, carefully brushing her hair away from her face.

Sif shivered under the touch but forced herself to stay in place. “What do I deserve this for?” she asked hoarsely.

“Girl code, isn’t it?” Loki replied with a shrug. “We hold each other’s hair in rough times. It’s how these things work.”

Sif wasn’t about to argue with that.

When she was well and truly done ten minutes later, she leant back against the wall with a sigh, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Loki mirrored her movements to lean against the opposite wall, facing her.

“So,” Sif said.

“So,” Loki replied.

“Where were you staying until now?”

“Church,” Loki answered with a shrug. “I slept in my office until the pastor realised what I was doing. He told me to find a homeless shelter, which really, not in a million years.”

“What, actual homeless people beneath you?” Sif joked. It had very clearly been the wrong thing to say, as Loki’s expression turned thunderous.

“Because I refuse to go back there.” She turned her head away, but by some miracle didn’t up and leave. “I ran away a couple of times as a kid,” she muttered instead, almost to herself. “It’s kind of what you do as an angry orphan.”

“And Thor always found you,” Sif guessed. Loki huffed, but a hint of a smile tugged at her lips.

“Yup.”

_Except for that time you faked your death._

“Loki…” Sif tried, but Loki’s gaze snapped up, rooting her to the spot.

“Is it going to be personal?” Loki asked. Sif swore inwardly.

“…no.”

Loki snorted before gripping the edge of the sink above her and hoisting herself up. “Save it,” she told Sif. “And call your boss.”

With a quick check of the time on her phone, Sif scrambled up as well. She only had ten minutes to make it to the precinct, which frankly wasn’t gonna happen. She needed to brush her teeth again, and could do with a shower too if she were honest.

“So you’re telling me I should call in sick?” she called after Loki, who was vanishing around the corner to probably continue to sulk on the couch. The only reply she got was a dismissive wave that could mean anything from _not my problem_ to _knock yourself out_ , so Sif decided to just go ahead and do it. It might mean being cooped up with Loki in the flat for a day – she doubted the PI was gonna go out and follow some PI agenda – but if this morning was anything to go by, it shouldn’t result in another burnt down building.

Hopefully.

She ended up spending most of the day holed up in her bedroom, only coming out for lunch when her growling stomach forced her to. Loki had found some of her post-its and was doodling away in the corner, which suited Sif just fine, as long as her flat wouldn’t be covered the next day with the damn things.

As she sat down with two plates of food, she realised what Loki was drawing.

“Are those the runes from my mark?” she asked, curiosity getting the best of her as she shifted across the couch to get a closer look.

“As far as I can remember,” Loki confirmed. She pulled out her phone, quickly typing something into a search engine. “I could be wrong of course, my notes burned up – that’s what I get for bringing my work home with me – but if these are in fact the runes that were on your leg, then I think I can tell you what they mean.”

“And?” Sif pressed.

“Grief,” Loki answered quietly.

Sif frowned. “That seems… sad.”

Loki snorted. “What an astute observation, Watson.”

“Hey, I don’t think so. I am totally Sherlock.”

“Except I’m the actual private detective, aren’t I?” Loki pointed out, her eyes sparkling with mischief. She knew she was right.

“What, so you’re saying I’m the Watson to your Sherlock? I am _not_ your sidekick.”

Loki barked out a laugh at that. “Yeah, no thanks.” She pointed at Sif’s arm. “Did you ever figure that out?”

Sif looked down, realising the PI had pointed at where she’d traced the word GUNGNIR over with pen every day to make sure she wouldn’t forget it. She always lost track of her post-its, so this had seemed more practical, but for some reason she felt the tips of her ears turn red at the thought of Loki seeing how Sif had meticulously traced over her handwriting each day.

“Not yet,” she admitted, quickly moving away again to get out of Loki’s personal space. “Why don’t you tell me what you found?” She grabbed her sandwich and took a large bite, just to have an excuse not to talk. Loki, who saw through the little move with ease, rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone again.

“Well,” she said, “it was Odin’s spear. I suspected your mark might be tied to Norse mythology, what with the runes, and its design resembles the most famous depictions we have of Gungnir. It’s a symbol of war.”

“And the flames?” Sif asked between bites.

“Destruction is my best guess,” Loki answered. “That’s what fire usually stands for. It could mean cleansing as well, but usually marks tend to portray the meaning of cleansing through water.”

Sif thought for a moment. “So what could this mean?” she eventually asked. “I mean, destruction, war, grief… Sounds like you’re describing a soldier with PTSD.”

Her heart stopped. She knew someone similar to that. Someone who’d been flirting with her almost since the day they’d met.

“Please don’t tell me it’s Brunhilde,” she whispered.

“Why, you not into her?” Loki asked.

“Because I’m pretty sure I’m not into women? I… Oh god, I don’t know…”

“What, you never experimented a little?”

Sif laughed. “I didn’t have time,” she admitted. “I was too busy aggressively proving my worth in school, and then at the Academy…”

“Well,” Loki tried, “has Brunhilde gone through some major changes recently? Or have you, maybe?”

“The only changes I’ve gone through are because of the mark,” Sif replied darkly. “Brunhilde though… I don’t think so. She’s had that job for a good while now, and she’s steadily been getting better. Nothing major though, I don’t think, or she would’ve told us. She literally tells us everything. _Everything_.”

She’d expected Loki to laugh at that, but instead the PI sank back into the couch with a frustrated sigh. “So we’re none the wiser.”

Sif nodded. “I guess.”

Suddenly Loki jumped up, moving to grab her shoes. “Maybe we’re not asking the right questions.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“To the library,” she replied. “I need to do some research.”

And before Sif could protest, Loki was out the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slightly prolonged absence. I've been moving and am currently living in a flat without Wi-Fi. RIP. Hopefully this chapter makes up for it a little!

It was dark by the time Loki returned. She was soaked from the rainstorm raging outside and carried a plastic bag full of heavy-looking books in her arms. Sif let out a chuckle at the sight of her, the image reminding her of a cat that had been thrown into a bathtub against its will, and she received a well-deserved death glare for it. To make up for it, she quickly rushed over to take the books and set them down before moving into her bedroom.

“Hold on,” she called out. “I’ve got some more clothes for you – clean ones, this time…” She rummaged through her wardrobe until she found what she was looking for; a maroon woollen jumper and a pair of fleece pyjama bottoms.

When she returned to the living room, she froze in her tracks.

Loki had taken off her jacket, but she hadn’t stopped there. She’d gone on to pull off her equally soaked shirt too and was in the middle of peeling off her jeans, revealing… well, _everything_.

“ _Ohmygod, why aren’t you wearing underwear?_ ”

Loki shot up, quickly covering herself with the jeans just as Sif threw up her hand to cover her own eyes.

“I put them in your hamper,” the reply came, but Loki sounded a little choked, and honestly, Sif could relate. She could feel the tips of her ears burn.

“Guess I’ll have to do laundry,” she muttered as she threw Loki the clothes she was holding. The realisation hit her then that Loki would be wearing _her_ pyjamas.

Without underwear.

Like, direct contact between Sif’s clothes and Loki’s…

“I’ll find you some underwear,” she squeaked. “And next time, for the love of god, please change in the bathroom!”

“Didn’t expect you to come out so quickly,” the gruff reply came, and Sif let out a nervous laugh. Sure. That was totally a valid reason.

When Loki was finally dressed, a towel wrapped around her hair and Sif’s water bottle held close so she could warm herself up a little, Sif decided to join her, if at an appropriate distance. She’d probably been friendly enough with the PI for today. Her heart was still racing for some reason.

“So what was the supply run for?” she asked, nodding at the bag of books Loki was now rummaging through, hoping the distraction would lower her blood pressure.

“I’ve only been a Mark Reader for two years,” Loki explained without looking up. “I am by no means an expert. So I thought, let’s see if there is any significance to the strong expression of Norse culture in your mark.”

Sif frowned. “You know, you’re putting a lot of work into something that isn’t even there anymore…”

“Are you calling me obsessive?” The PI’s gaze settled on her, sharp and unwavering like a cat’s. Sif swallowed.

“No?”

“Well, I am. I enjoy research, and Norse mythology is one of my favourite subjects, even if I haven’t delved into it deeply enough as of yet.”

Sif frowned, a little confused by the verbal curveball she’d been thrown, before shrugging. “Seems fair.”

She sat back and watched Loki work for a while; the PI leafed through books, put post-its on random pages and scribbled information down on the yellow paper as she read. Sometimes she became so engrossed she stopped blinking for an unnaturally long time. Not that Sif kept track. Or was staring at Loki’s eyes. Why would she? They were just eyes. And Loki was just Loki, an obnoxious, stubborn, rude…

Alright, she hadn’t been _that_ bad. Maybe it was too soon to tell, but Loki seemed a pretty unobtrusive flatmate. Sure, she’d stripped randomly in the middle of the living room, but she’d been cold and wet. It had probably been brain-freeze. Yeah, brain-freeze. That must’ve been it.

The fact was, the longer Sif spent in Loki’s vicinity, the easier it felt. The two seemed to move with surprising ease around each other outside of the interrogation room. They didn’t talk much, because they didn’t feel the need to. Sif let Loki to herself, and Loki returned in kind. It was easy. Calming, almost.

Except for those moments when Sif’s heart started to race for seemingly no reason, as if a sudden bout of anxiety hit her whenever she looked at the soft skin on Loki’s hands where the flames had managed to spare her, or the way Loki chewed the inside of her lip as she studied the pages in front of her, or the way she slowly and carefully tucked an escaped strand of hair back under her towel…

Loudly clearing her throat – and receiving another death glare for the interruption – Sif hastily got up, moving to the kitchen to heat up leftovers from a few days ago.

“You like curry?” she asked, still too loud, wincing at herself.

“Sure,” the absentminded reply came, the tone indicating that Loki was still engrossed in her work, even with Sif’s interruptions. That was good, she supposed. She hated to get in the way.

What was she thinking? This was _her_ flat. Loki hadn’t actually taken it over. She’d barely been here two days. It wasn’t as if she’d claimed her territory like some animal, sprawling across the couch with far too much familiarity.

Sif snuck a glance around the corner. Loki was still curled up on the couch, Sif’s hot-water bottle lying in her lap. No sprawling in sight. Good.

“So, what got you into Mark Reading?” she asked as she returned to the living room a few minutes later with two plates of reheated curry. “Was it, you know…” She nodded at Loki’s wrists, of course once again managing to say exactly the wrong thing.

Loki froze, but it seemed that whatever Sif had done wrong, it wasn’t as bad this time. After a few seconds the PI shook her head. “No, this is more recent,” she admitted reluctantly as she twisted her scarred wrists under the light of the side table lamp, the silver bands almost seeming to shimmer. “I just got bored of the standard _‘I think my husband is having an affair’_ spiel, you know. This was more interesting. More abstract. You’d be surprised how much literary and classical knowledge you need for Mark Reading.” She smiled, and Sif couldn’t help but smile back a little. She joined Loki on the couch, pulling her feet up as well to curl up in her own corner.

“What’s your favourite story?” she asked, and Loki’s eyes lit up. _Bingo._ Finally, the right question.

“This one guy had what looked like scribbles on her arm,” she told Sif. “I looked into everything. I even analysed heavy metal band names – you’d be surprised how insanely unreadable their designs get. I think I went through four different encyclopaedias on obscure cultures and religions. You’ll never guess how I figured it out.”

“I didn’t even know people used encyclopaedias anymore,” Sif admitted with a laugh. Loki raised an eyebrow.

“Exhaust any and every source available,” she replied, and Sif vaguely recognised the phrase from her years at the Academy. She remembered then that Loki’s adoptive father had been police too. She wondered if he’d been a detective.

“Okay, so what source gave you the answer in the end?” she asked, rather than to delve down that touchy rabbit hole. Loki’s eyes shone.

“An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the church.”

“ _What?_ You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Loki replied gleefully. “I like to keep my office door open the tiniest bit –”

“Listening in on private conversations –”

“Yes, I like to eavesdrop,” Loki snarked, rolling her eyes. “Sue me. Anyway, this one girl admitted that to help her with darker thoughts, she draws and writes on her arm. Just non-specific things. The feeling of the pen against her skin distracts her, and the sense of drawing and writing calms her down.”

Sif felt a smile spread on her face. “It’s a coping mechanism.”

“And my client received every pen stroke.”

“I didn’t realise that could happen,” Sif admitted. “That a mark can be someone’s writing, rather than this…”

“Symbolic depiction?” Loki finished. “Yeah. It doesn’t happen often though. Readers aren’t sure if that’s because not many soulmates get into the habit of writing on themselves, or if it’s because of some deeper meaning, like with everything else.”

“So how did you end up finding your client’s… soulmate?” Sif still struggled to say the word. It was too cliché, too fantastical. The hint of a smile tugging at Loki’s lips indicated she might feel similarly.

“I went through a list of her friends and acquaintances,” the PI replied. “I checked who was seeing a psychologist, who had liked posts on Facebook or Tumblr about coping mechanisms… It took a bit of time and learning stuff about coding and cross-referencing digital information through specialised software, but after no less than _three months_ , I found her.”

Sif smiled. “And?” she asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.

“Yeah, it was just the girl from the AA.”

They both fell into bouts of laughter at that, with Sif managing to almost fall off the couch in the moment. They spent the rest of the evening chatting about everything and nothing in particular; Sif’s favourite cases, teenage romances, their favourite books. It was a surprisingly nice evening. But all the while, Sif couldn’t help but let her gaze slip to Loki’s wrists every now and then. Couldn’t help but think of the questions she wasn’t asking, about the answers Loki held so closely to herself, and the walls she’d built to keep them all locked in. There were so many words unsaid between them, and as they started to get to know each other a little better, there only seemed to be more unspoken words, hanging heavy in the air between them. Their weight remained even after Sif wished Loki goodnight, leaving the PI to read by the table light as she crawled under her own duvet in the room along the hallway.

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

It was back to work again the next day. Sif left Loki a spare key so that her guest could come and go as she pleased; the police part of her whispered that giving someone she barely knew free access to her flat was never a good idea, but she was starting to trust Loki. Something she knew was probably going to come back and bite her in the ass later, guessing from the stranger, more undone glimpses she’d received of Loki. But she wanted to give her a chance.

Heimdall didn’t seem particularly heartbroken to have her back at the precinct, which could be counted as progress at this point. Thor and Fandral came to distract her from her slaving in the evidence room every now and then as well. The boys were like a breath of fresh air in the musty room, bringing coffee from the Kaffebrenneriet (with hearts and kisses drawn on her cup, while Thor’s had a skull-and-crossbones and Fandral’s an artfully drawn middle finger) and jokes about the outside world. Without them, Sif was starting to feel as if a life beyond the four walls of her flat or those of the precinct didn’t even exist anymore.

“How much longer do you think Heimdall is going to punish me?” she asked as she leaned back against a box full of stolen sneakers, sipping from her jet-black coffee. “I feel like I’m already losing my mind, and it’s been, what, a week?”

“Beats me,” Fandral answered from his own corner of the room as he wiped his forehead. “But for your sake I hope he’ll let you off the hook soon. I don’t know how you stand it in here, I’m sweating like a nun in a whorehouse.”

Thor snorted at that, but Sif didn’t reply. Truth was, Richard’s words still plagued her mind every now and then. She felt like she really couldn’t complain. After all, she’d called it upon herself. And like Richard had said, it might be tedious, but it was important work.

“In all fairness, though, I don’t think you’ll be out of here for the next month,” Thor pointed out. “I’ve not been on patrol since the whole incident either. Fandral’s been having to make do with this random guy –”

“I’ll have you know that Martin is a lovely person,” Fandral intersected halfheartedly. Thor waved away his weak attempts at protesting.

“Martin isn’t me,” he retorted. “Admit it, you miss me.” And then to Sif, his voice dropping to a stage-whisper: “Martin doesn’t like coffee. Or the Brenneriet.”

Sif gasped in mock horror at that, and Fandral rolled his eyes.

“You can joke all you want, but you don’t have to deal with his complaints of how the car smells of caffeine every day.”

“Yeah, he sounds like a hoot, you’re clearly fine without Thor.”

“Oh, shut up, Kriegsen.”

The boys made her days bearable like this. Light-hearted banter and Brunhilde’s ridiculously strong coffee filled the dreary hours spent pent up in dank little storage rooms. Back at the flat, Loki seemed to have found her own rhythm, spending the time that Sif was at home by quietly reading in the corner of the comfy sofa, scribbling notes and sketches into her notebook, or casually engaging in easy conversation. She was still withdrawn, with her walls up as high as ever, not speaking unless spoken to, but Sif found her slowly coming out of her shell as time went on. Sometimes Loki would quietly appear by her side as she was washing up, wordlessly taking the plates and cups and drying them for Sif. Other times she would scribble messages onto Sif’s skin of things the detective needed to remember, like what show to add to her Netflix watch list or that she needed to pick up milk on her way home from the precinct. Things were getting easier again. Sif missed Richard’s presence every now and then, but Loki had filled the silence he’d left behind in the flat so quickly, it was hard for her to ever feel lonely.

Sif was surprised to find herself almost content with how things were. The only thing she could wish for was another case, something to stimulate her mind, but that would mean someone in Oslo would have to be murdered, which she didn’t wish on anyone. Well, maybe just a little, but not _seriously_. So for now, she was content.

Except it was of course never that easy.

It had been over a week since she’d taken Loki in when she returned home to find the flat in a state of chaos.

Her first thought was that someone had broken in; clothes were strewn about, books were tossed against walls. She itched for a weapon, _something_ , as she inched her way forward through the hallway and towards the living room, which seemed to be the epicentre of the disaster zone.

And there, at the heart of her flat, in the eye of the storm, stood Loki, her back turned towards Sif. She seemed to be trembling, shoulders rising and falling as she breathed heavily, her fists balled by her sides.

“Loki?”

The PI’s head shot up, and to Sif’s horror, that wildness, that feverishness in her gaze that she had caught a glimpse of the first time she’d met Loki, had returned in full force. Loki looked like she was about to shatter.

“What the hell did you do?” Sif asked, the words coming out harsher than she’d meant. But her place was trashed. Loki had trashed her place, and now she just stood there, like some wild animal, a deer caught in headlights.

Loki let out a sound that could have been a huff of exasperation or a sob, Sif wasn’t sure, but before she could stop her, Loki was grabbing her bag and coat and stormed out.

“Hey, where are you going – don’t you _dare_! Come back!”

But Loki was gone, leaving Sif with the mess. In the piles of stuff around her, she spotted Richard’s clothes and books, and she swore loudly. Those better not be damaged. She still had to return those, since she was slowly getting the impression that the man wasn’t going to come back anytime soon to retrieve them himself.

The reminder of him still lingering in her life hurt a surprising amount; as she furiously started grabbing his stuff and putting it together in one pile, she felt the same wounds from the night he’d walked out open up again. She thought she’d moved on. She thought she didn’t miss him that much. But he’d walked out, and it still hurt.

She gave up after about a minute, letting out a furious scream as she grabbed an empty glass from the coffee table and shattered it against the wall.

“I didn’t ask for this!” she shouted at no-one in particular. “I picked up a stray expecting it to behave, like a fucking _idiot_ , and look where it got me! A _shit-heap_ –” she threw a bowl this time, which was luckily made of plastic and survived the impact, “which should _not_ be my responsibility! She’s a mature fucking adult! But with these goddamn _issues_ –” some cutlery went flying this time – “she can’t fucking communicate! That should not be on me! Let her fucking ruin someone else’s life!”

She stood there panting for a while, unsure where all this rage had suddenly come from. She thought they’d been getting along. That things had been easy. But then again, she’d thought she was accepting her punishment at work with grace at well, all the while secretly wishing for someone to drop dead under suspicious circumstances so that she was needed again. Not to mention the fact that she could barely look at Richard’s belongings without feeling her eyes burn with guilt, shame and loss. How was she so blind to her own emotions?

“I need to go punch something,” she growled, grabbing her duffel bag from her room and heading for the gym, slamming the door shut behind her.

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

When she returned to the dressing room, two-and-a-half hours of kicking a trainer’s ass in the gym’s boxing ring later and dripping with sweat, she found her phone flashing with one pleading message:

_Please tell me Thor knows_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus, has it actually been a month?? Wow. I do apologise. I sadly can't promise faster/more regular updates however, since uni is absolutely destroying me at the moment. The stress is real, people. I will do my best to push on with this fic tho! Anyway, here's the next chapter (unedited/unbetaed, so if it's a mess, apologies). Hope it's alright!

Sif didn’t even care about the looks she was receiving as she walked into the Brenneriet, still in her gym clothes and covered in sweat. Thor was sitting near the window, together with Jane and Darcy. The manager, Bruce, was happily chatting away to his fellow Americans, while Thor just listened and smiled as he held Jane’s hand under the table. Sif almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“I need you to sort this out,” she told her friend resolutely, shoving her phone in his face.

“Oh, hey Sif! How’s police?” Darcy piped up, as amenable as ever.

“Hi Darcy. It’s shit. I’ve been benched.”

“Aw, sucks, man.”

“Yup. Thor?”

Jane watched the exchange with a hint of amusement on her face while Thor frowned at the screen, until she finally took the phone from his hand with an exasperated sigh.

“I swear, we need to get your eyes checked,” she told him. “‘ _Please tell me Thor knows._ ’ What is that supposed to mean?”

Thor snatched the phone back, but Sif took it from him again instantly. Bruce had been watching the whole exchange silently up until now, but he finally seemed to have found his voice.

“It’s a cry for help, isn’t it?”

The whole group turned to him, and he shrugged. “It’s what you do when you hit a low point. You try to ask for help in whatever way you feel you can.”

“She trashed my place,” Sif replied pointedly. “Then she ran out, and she texted me this. How is that a cry for help? Help her with what? What’s Thor supposed to know?”

“I mean, I don’t know her,” Bruce replied, “but whatever it is, I’d say she thinks Thor is supposed to know or hear about it at some point. I mean, she’s asked before, right?”

Sif raised her eyebrow, and Bruce suddenly didn’t quite know where to look. “You guys have interesting conversations,” he muttered.

“True,” Darcy agreed around a mouth full of blueberry muffin, receiving a smack on the arm from Jane for it.

“What could it be, you think?” Sif asked Thor, but he shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wish I knew.”

“What if you just ask?”

They all stared at Bruce for a second.

“Don’t tell me none of you have tried that yet.”

“I mean…” Thor started, but Sif cut him off quickly.

“We don’t even know where she is.”

Jane’s face lit up at that.

“Not a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Thor is an expert in finding Loki.”

Thor seemed to wither a little under the praise. “I mean, she was in town for the past few years and I had no idea…”

“That’s because you gave up on her,” Jane pointed out, to which Thor flinched, “which you’re not to blame for. You thought she was dead. You know better now. You still know her better than anyone. If anyone can find her, it’s you.”

“You been to Oslo with her before?” Darcy asked, stuffing another bit of muffin into her mouth. “’ow awy o er ower fawouwide ‘afes?”

Thor stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to swallow. “Try that again,” he told her with a huff of laughter.

“Know any of her favourite places?”

It took a second, but then something seemed to dawn on him.

“It’s a long shot, but if I’m right…” He started gathering his things, suddenly full of energy. “I’ll be back in an hour. Two hours, tops. Or I’ll call.” He pressed a quick but soft kiss against Jane’s lips before heading for the door. “Don’t go anywhere!” he told Sif. And then he was gone.

Sif looked down at herself, at her sweat pits and her messy clothes.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

The group reconvened at Bar 53, Sif fresh out of the shower and in some clean clothes this time. As they waited, she took the opportunity to have a good, healthy rant to some of the very few women in her life.

“…it’s like I took in a stray cat,” she told them vehemently over her third pint and a plate of chips. “She’s okay half the time, and then she pees on my furniture and scratches up my favourite jumper.”

“I have a cat that did that!” Darcy enthusiastically added. “Absolute nightmare.”

Sif groaned. “Tell me about it. How did you deal with it?”

“Patience.” Darcy shrugged. “And lots of love.”

“I’m not hugging Loki.”

“Maybe a backrub? She seems kinda tense.”

Darcy received a limp chip in the face for that.

“I don’t take backrubs.”

The three women looked up to find Loki at the entrance of the pub, a very smug-looking Thor hiding just behind her. Sif felt a small pang of relief at the sight of them. She’d been getting a little worried, even though she’d only vocalised her frustration to the others. The look on Loki’s face before she took off… It almost haunted Sif.

“Gin,” Sif told the barman, and then to Darcy and Jane, “I’d prefer it if you both leave now.”

“Jane and Darcy are family,” Thor started to protest, but Loki flinched.

“Not to me. Out.”

“It’s fine,” Jane told Thor softly. “Come on, Darcy.”

“Well frankly I think it’s rude.”

“No-one asked you, Darcy.”

“Not gonna stop me from voicing my opinion.”

The two women left the bar still amenably bickering, and Thor and Loki took their now empty seats.

“So,” Loki was the first to speak, “you summoned me?”

Through the bitterness of her tone, Sif instantly picked up on something else – exhaustion. If Loki was too tired to even hide that, she had to be in quite a state. And if Sif looked closer, it was very obviously there. There was a serious lack of self-care about Loki; her unwashed hair falling once again in strands out of her messy braid, one of Sif’s old and likely unwashed blouses hanging from her frame. Sif wondered if Loki had been eating well enough, and she wanted to kick herself for not paying closer attention. Loki had been living with her after all. She should’ve noticed sooner that things were not perfect, that Loki had been hurtling towards another breaking point.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

_Okay._

“Thor manage to find you alright?”

“I visited a couple of places before I managed to track her down, actually,” Thor piped up, but he was quickly silenced by a withering glare from his sister.

“Listen,” Loki hissed. “Cut the chit-chat. What do you want?”

Sif had to bite her lip to hold herself back from spitting out her next words. If she went on the attack now, this would only backfire. But by god, Loki knew how to get under her fucking skin.

“I would like an apology for the state of my flat, frankly,” she answered, “but I’ll settle for you cleaning it up yourself. I have better stuff to do than cleaning up after you like I’m your bloody mother.”

Loki flinched at that, and Sif held her breath for a second, fearing she’d lose the woman already, but the tension was broken a second later as a glass of gin was set on the little table by the bartender.

“Raspberry gin,” he told them before scurrying off again. Loki looked down slightly perplexed at the drink, which had been delivered with some expensive blossom tonic and several fresh fruits swirling around in it.

“Looks like you have an admirer,” Thor said lamely. Loki just shook her head and mixed the drink before taking a big swig. She let the alcohol sink in for a moment before sighing and opening her eyes again, training them on Sif.

“So I’m not kicked out?”

“On one condition.”

Loki let out a groan at that, but Sif grabbed her wrist, preventing her from hiding her frustrations in her drink again.

“Talk to Thor,” she told Loki. “Whatever he needs to know, you tell him. You talk this out. No more lashing out at my flat and my things. And no more cryptic fucking messages!”

Loki considered her words for a moment, mulling them over as she grabbed her drink with her free hand and swirled around the fruits.

“Alright,” she finally agreed quietly. “When I’m ready.”

Sif was about to protest, but Loki was already knocking back her drink, fruits and all. With a satisfied noise she slammed the glass down and blew a kiss at the bartender, who turned a worrying shade of red, before whipping a pen out of her braided hair, and really, she had art supplies in her hair? Since when? And was that Sif’s pen?

But before Sif could ask, Loki had gripped her chin, holding her face still as she wrote on the detective’s cheek.

“Um, Loki?” Thor tried as Sif felt the tips of her ears burn. They didn’t receive an answer though. Instead, Loki gave a satisfied little nod at her work, her eyes shining with mischief. She hopped off her barstool then.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” she told them, sticking the pen back into her hair. Sif watched her go, her hips swaying a little as she walked out the door, clearly having perked up a little from whatever that had been.

“What did she do?” Sif asked, her voice slightly panic-stricken. “What did she write? Is it bad? Is it a swear-word?”

Thor frowned. “I mean, sort of?” he replied. “See for yourself.”

He held up his phone, and with the use of the front camera, Sif could just make out the words:

_When I’m fucking ready_

“Oh for fuck’s – was she always this dramatic?” Sif asked as she started furiously rubbing at her cheek. Thor shrugged.

“As far as I can remember.”

“Oh, don’t sound so happy about it.”

“What? It’s nice to have her back.”

“Drama and all,” Sif muttered. “This better?” She showed Thor her cheek, but to her frustration, he just snorted.

“Nope,” he replied. “Hasn’t budged. What was she writing with, permanent marker?”

“No, she was writing with my pen, one of those precinct standard ones…” Sif frowned. And thought.

And then something clicked.

“Oh, hell fucking no.”

_~oO0OoO0OoO0Oo~_

Sif got back to her flat four hours later, once again drunk off her face, praying to whichever god that might be willing to listen that Loki wasn’t in.

Of course, the gods never gave a damn about Sif.

“Have a good night?”

“Jesus – I guess, no thanks to you,” Sif muttered after getting over the miniature heart attack of her living room chair seemingly speaking to her out of nowhere. “Why are you hiding in the dark?”

Loki turned on the table lamp beside her, causing Sif to wince a little.

“I fell asleep,” the answer came. “I took care of the flat, by the way.”

Sif looked around, and to her mild surprise, she indeed found the mess from earlier all tidied away. Even Richard’s remaining things were lying in a separate pile, folded neatly in a corner.

Ugh.

With a groan Sif sank down on the couch. Even with the room spinning, she could feel Loki’s sharp gaze on her, pinning her down, grounding her.

“You’re really sharp, you know that,” she told the PI. “Like a dagger. Like a pin. Like, like you know those butterfly collectors, and they pin butterflies down, that’s you, all pointy and shiny and sharp.”

“And you’re the butterfly?” Loki asked, amusement tinting her voice.

Sif shrugged. “Maybe. Right now, feels like it. What are you staring at?”

“I’m not staring.”

“I can feel you staring.”

“You’re drunk.”

Sif turned her head to face Loki properly, and saw the mirth in the woman’s eyes.

“You’re definitely staring. Am I pretty? Or do I just look dumb right now?”

Loki let out a laugh at that; the sound sharp and clear, just like her eyes. _Pretty eyes. Pretty laugh. Pretty Loki. Pretty Sif?_

“Well, the ink on your face looks pretty ridiculous, I won’t lie,” Loki admitted. “Did you seriously not try to wash it off?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Sif retorted half-heartedly. “I tried. You have magic marker powers.”

Loki bit her lip ever so briefly at that, humming softly to herself.

“I do, don’t I?” she muttered. “You think about that yet?”

“I don’t wanna,” Sif replied. “You’re a fucking pain. Why do you think I’ve been drinking?”

And there you had it, bad decision of the day. The mirth on Loki’s face faded, was placed behind lock and key as the walls came up again.

“That’s real nice of you, thanks,” she snarled, but before she could get up, Sif had grabbed her wrist again. She half expected Loki to pull free from her grip, but like in the bar, Loki just let Sif hold her.

“Stop fucking running, you coward,” Sif told her, and there was no aggression behind it, no force, but Loki still slapped her.

Sif had to blink, take a moment to process what had just happened. Her cheek stung and her eyes watered. But her hand was still on Loki’s wrist. She looked at it numbly, looked at how Loki’s hand twisted in her loose grip. Slender hands, with long fingers. Piano hands. Burned hands.

“When did you get your mark?” she asked softly as the silver shone between her fingers. She was becoming aware of the feeling of the scarred skin under her touch; wrinkled, but soft. Damaged and thin and fragile.

“Don’t call me a coward,” Loki replied instead, but everything was wrong, everything was twisted. Her arm twitched under Sif’s grip again, but she still didn’t pull free. Sif wondered how long it’d been since someone had held Loki.

“Why are you still here?” she asked, carefully pulling the PI closer, never letting go. “Why won’t you go?”

“Got nowhere else to turn to, do I?”

Sif shook her head. “You could go to Thor’s. I’m sure he’d take you in. Or hide out in the church again. But you stay here instead. Even though we work about as badly as you and Thor do.”

Loki snorted at that. She was on the couch with Sif now, closer than was strictly necessary. But Sif pitied her. She saw so much going on beneath the surface, if she just looked close enough into those eyes, greenish blue with a stormy grey, like the roiling sea…

“You let me.”

“I do.”

“You tolerate me.”

“Even though you’re a pain.”

“Not that you’re much better. Drunk.”

“Arsonist.”

“Cop.”

“Fucking PI.”

Loki’s eyes shimmered at that, and before Sif knew it, she was cackling with laughter.

“That’s your best insult, huh?” Loki hiccupped, and Sif turned her face away in embarrassment. Loki only laughed harder at that.

“Oh shut up.”

“No way, this is priceless,” Loki told her. “Hold on.”

She suddenly licked her finger and started furiously rubbing at Sif’s face.

Sif could only sit in horror as she let it happen, needing a few seconds before her mind jumpstarted and reminded her she still had pen on her cheek. Even now, Loki kept laughing.

“What? Is it coming off?”

“Nope!”

_Of course it fucking isn’t._ “It’s not funny!”

“Oh no, I think it’s pretty funny,” Loki managed to bring out. “I can draw anything on you and it just… sticks.” There was an evil glint in her eyes, and Sif quickly backed away in horror, remembering the secret stash of art supplies in Loki’s hair.

“You’re not drawing on me!”

“You don’t want my handwriting off your face, then?” Loki asked sweetly.

“I’ll take it for now, thanks.”

In truth, Sif was afraid to see what would happen if Loki drew or wrote on her skin again. See the mark on her cheek vanish like they suspected it would. Seeing the confirmation of their suspicions.

“Why is this not terrifying for you?” she asked. “How are you here and making jokes about this, but whatever is going on with Thor is fucking you up so epically? And don’t tell me it doesn’t affect you at all. You tried burning off your mark.”

Loki fell silent at that, and the sudden absence of her voice seemed to drop the temperature in the room.

“What makes you say that?” Loki asked. Her voice had dropped too, low and dangerous.

“You’ve got burn scars running up your arms, and they’re the worst at your wrists,” Sif replied carefully. How she hadn’t put the pieces together before, she didn’t know. But it made sense. “You tried burning off your mark. That’s how you torched your flat, isn’t it?”

To her horror, Loki smiled a mirthless smile at that. It cracked her face in two, letting the manic fever bleed through to fill her eyes and douse the playful sparks, replacing them with swirling darkness.

“I burned my flat down myself,” she replied, sounding almost baffled that Sif couldn’t see it. “On purpose.”

“But your wrists,” Sif tried, and it cooled down the fever again, though sadly none of the earlier warmth seemed to be coming back yet.

“I burned my wrists too.”

“So, what? You just want to burn everything?”

“When the mark wouldn’t melt off with my skin, when I couldn’t destroy it, I destroyed everything around me.”

Sif was shaking, and when Loki gently reached for her face, she realised she was crying too. She flinched away from Loki’s touch, scrambling back a little across the couch and unwillingly instantly missing the warmth of the other woman’s proximity.

“How can anyone do that? Seriously, how can you do that to yourself?”

Loki turned away, hiding her emotions, as per fucking usual.

“I prefer self-inflicted chaos.”

“Over _what_?! Christ, what happened to you? It’s your life that triggered the mark to appear, isn’t it? I want to fucking bet it’s whatever you’re wanting Thor to know.”

Loki’s head whipped around at that, the fever back and blazing in her eyes, and Sif knew she was right.

“It’s none of your goddamn business!”

“ _Hah!_ ” Sif pointed at the words sprawled across her cheek. “I’m pretty sure it is! How the hell am I tied to you of all people? You’re my polar fucking opposite!”

Both women were breathing heavily, glaring at each other from across the couch, the air crackling with electricity as the silence grew. Sif could feel tears still streaming down her face, and she knew she was drunk, it was the only time she ever really cried, but she ignored them to glare daggers at Loki, whose eyes were wide and manic. Sif’s words hung between them, the first time either of them had admitted out loud that they had to be linked. Sif’s glare challenged Loki to reply, to react, _anything_ , while Loki’s mind seemed to go at a million miles an hour, calculating perhaps how quickly she could sprint to the door if she wanted to escape without Sif managing to catch her again.

And then Loki crumbled. She started to laugh again, and for a second Sif wanted to shout at her again, but then she realised that between laughs, Loki too was crying.

“Shit, Loki –”

“You know,” Loki interrupted her, “I don’t think I’ll ever be fucking ready.”

Sif frowned for a moment before remembering the sentence on her cheek. Gingerly reached up to touch it, and Loki let out a small, broken sound.

“You’re right, I’m a coward.”

“You’re not running from me though,” Sif tried. “From this mess.”

“Self-inflicted chaos,” Loki replied. “I’m still running from my other…” she gestured vaguely, trying to catch her breath. “Stuff. Just running to you, I guess. Good a place as any to take shelter and ignore my fears and problems.” Her eyes finally focused on Sif’s, large and glistening in the dimmed light of the table lamp. “Nothing here to remind me of them. This life is too different.” She swallowed. “ _You’re_ different.”

The distance between them began to close again, and Sif felt her heart constrict. She wasn’t ready for this. Not for Loki, not for any of it. But they kept orbiting around each other, like planets. It was impossible to ignore gravity.

“So you don’t wanna talk about it?” she asked as she started to lean in, hungry for that warmth she’d lost moments ago. Loki was under her skin, was laying her open to the world, leaving her raw and exposed, but Loki also felt like the only place where Sif could find shelter from that exposure.

_Self-inflicted chaos._

“Talking makes it real,” Loki whispered, fingers tangling into the fabric of Sif’s shirt.

There were inches between them.

And Sif just got an idea.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “What if –” she jumped up from the couch, and pain flashed on Loki’s face. She could feel it too, having ripped herself away from her shelter, but she ignored it. “What if you don’t have to talk about it?”

“That was the plan,” Loki retorted incredulously. “I was gonna shut us both up – are you okay?”

“The room is kinda tilted sideways and I think I may start vomiting in ten minutes,” Sif replied breathlessly, “but – no, see, tempting as – as whatever you had in mind, which I probably shouldn’t assume about – I mean, it’s not gonna solve anything, we’re just gonna end up a mess, but what if we can fix this? You need Thor to know whatever is going on, and I probably need to know too –” she pointed at the mark on her cheek again, and Loki rolled her eyes – “so what if I just _do my job_?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m a detective! I’ve been dying to solve your mystery for ages, so what if I treat it like a proper case!?”

Loki stared.

And stared a bit longer.

“You want to open a case on me.”

“If that’s okay,” Sif replied hastily. “Of course, this is your privacy we’re discussing here, your life. But if you trust me… I could try and just figure out for myself what’s up, Thor might be able to help me, and you don’t have to tell me anything. You don’t have to lift a finger.”

“I just have to trust you with the more intimate details of my life.”

“Exactly!”

Loki stayed silent for a moment, contemplating what this might mean for herself. If this could work. When she finally stood up, the roiling emotions in her eyes, all the conflict and chaos of the past day, or maybe weeks even – seemed calmed, finally making way for determination. She straightened up to her full length, chin up just a little, and Sif started to see that fierceness from Thor’s few stories. A glimpse of the old Loki – the real Loki.

“Let’s do it.”

Sif’s face broke out in a grin, and before she could stop herself, her hands were gripping Loki’s face. She leaned in and pressed a kiss against the PI’s mouth – brief, with too much enthusiasm and speed, bruising their lips, but a kiss nevertheless. When she pulled back, it was her own jaw she felt drop just the slightest bit as the shock of what she’d just done hit her. Loki on the other hand narrowed her eyes.

“Interesting,” the PI muttered.

“God, this is a bad idea,” Sif whispered.

“Because you’re giving in to what the mark is telling you, or because I’m an unstable, psychotic mess with pyromantic tendencies?”

Sif let out a huff of laughter at that. “Definitely both.”

“Good.” Loki’s eyes shimmered with mischief again. “Want to inflict some chaos on yourself?”

“It’s better than having it happen to you without being able to control it, I suppose,” Sif retorted with a half-smile and a shrug. Loki smirked at that.

“Now you’re starting to get it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come stalk me on [tumblr](https://queer-crusader.tumblr.com/), or just stop by and have a chat! I do a bit of art every now and then as well now, which is always nice


End file.
